Ex Multus Familia: Part 3
by Flying-Griffins
Summary: FINAL PART of the Ex Multus Familia Trilogy. The transgenics finally confront the Familiars and Telic on their own terms. No one's standing down anymore, and it's time to give everything to protect what they've built. Alec/Sidda, M/L, Robin/Seth, Syl/Krit
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel so don't sue me. Thanks. :-)

A/N: WOW! I can't believe I made it to PART THREE of a trilogy! :) Thanks for reading along and please feel free to review! I love reviews!

**Ex Multus Familia: Part 3**

Chapter 1

"It still looks depressing." Sidda folded her arms against the chill wind; in the middle of Seattle winter even a transgenic could feel the cold, especially when they were only wearing a leather jacket.

Alec slipped an arm around her and pulled her in close. "We're trying to clean it up," he said, his sigh blowing a gust of warm air across the top of her head.

They had been out walking; Robin had insisted that they let her watch Aiden for a bit. She said it was imperative they get away for their mental health and wouldn't take no for an answer. And as much as Sidda loved Aiden, she was sort of grateful to Robin. It was nice to have some alone time with Alec every now and then.

"Mmm, peace and quiet," Alec said.

Sidda laughed. "I was just thinking that." She shook her head. Aiden was well into the wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-stage, and it had been a little rough on the two of them. It sometimes felt like he was awake all the time, which had to be physically impossible…right?

Alec tugged on Sidda's hand and pulled her along the road, away from the rubble of the Cultural Center. It had mostly been cleaned up, blocks of usable stone and wood moved to fix up other buildings, smaller buildings being constructed in its place. But bits and pieces of the skeleton of the old place were still there.

"I wonder…"

"You know they're just biding their time," Alec said.

Sidda rolled her eyes at him. He had developed an annoying habit of seeming to be able to read her mind way too easily. "But still…"

"Hey, at least Max has chilled out about letting us go to the farm," Alec said. Recognizing that she was going to have a mutiny of her hands if the transgenic were restricted to Terminal City any longer, Max had finally given into pressure to ease up on restrictions, despite the fact that they hadn't managed to get any closer to discovering who the Familiars in the government were and which group of Familiars exactly was after them.

"Well, much longer and most of us would have gone anyway," Sidda said. Not all of them had lived in the city for years like Max. When they hadn't been in their dorms or in the training buildings, a lot of them had been in the woods around Manticore or in deep cover missions where they had a whole lot more freedom.

But even the 09ers didn't like the feeling of being penned in constantly. It wasn't really in a transgenic's nature to stay put for very long…Max was sort of unique when it came to that particular need. Most of them did feel a need to be with others of their kind though, and being in a large group allowed them to do that more safely than if they were only with their squads. Small squads would have been easy for the government to take out if they had the right equipment.

Alec smiled and raised an eyebrow as he looked at Sidda. "Some of us did go away," he reminded her.

"Hey, that's not fair!" Sidda scowled at him, but she couldn't keep it up for long when Alec made the same face right back at her. A pouting scowl was just a funny look for Alec.

"Come on, dork," Sidda said, angling toward a road that would eventually take them back to their apartment. "We better go relieve Robin of babysitting duties before she pulls her hair out."

"Are you kidding?" Alec asked, even as he complied with Sidda's directional change. "That woman loves those babies. I'd swear, if we weren't careful, she'd probably make off with Aiden in the night or something."

Sidda snorted, not even bothering to deign that ridiculous idea with an answer. As if Robin would actually ever steal a baby from someone.

When they got back though, Robin did look slightly harassed. She had her arms folded and was glaring down at Aiden and Taylor, who both had very innocent looks on their faces. It was amazing how natural that look was for children, even when they weren't even old enough to realize they were using it.

"What happened? Sidda asked as she and Alec stepped into the nursery.

Robin shook her head. "They're just being their usual selves. Always fighting over the same exact toy; can't use the one that looks just like it, noooo, they have to have the one that the other is holding!"

Alec raised an eyebrow. "Aiden actually managed to play tug-o-war with Taylor?"

"Not really," Robin said, smiling slightly, "But it always sets them both off into crying fits."

"And it's absolutely lovely," Sidda said sarcastically. She'd had to deal with this sort of incident several times herself.

"Oh, Seth called," Robin said as she picked up Taylor and Alec picked up Aiden, who squirmed around in his arms. "He said that there's supposed to be a meeting at Headquarters tonight." Her tone became more serious. "We've gotten some new information on a split in the ranks of the Familiars. Also, some of the transgenics have been advocating for revenge against Telic, as you know, and someone's probably going to call for some action on that tonight."

"Oh, yay, what a fun meeting to have a week before Christmas," Sidda said after leaning over to kiss Aiden's forehead. Sometimes she really understood Max and her want of a normal life. It would have been nice if they didn't have to worry about people wanting to kill them or them wanting to kill those people right around what was supposed to be a holiday all about forgiveness.

"Well, that's how we managed to get some info from the government team," Robin said. "Some of them are on 'Christmas vacation'."

Sidda sighed. "And of course discussing Telic is inevitable." She understood everyone wanting to do something about it; the tragedy had brought grief to all parts of their community, and had done horrible things to their morale for a few months. They hadn't realized how much working on and in the Cultural Center had mattered to them until it was gone.

But now the temporary one, though smaller, was working, and anger had replaced confusion and sadness. Now they wanted to do something, and many wanted to show the humans that there would be repercussions for thoughtless killing.

Sidda, and a good number of other transgenics, just weren't sure that killing humans was going to solve any of their problems. But then again, Sidda and Alec had been lucky. They hadn't lost mates in the bombing.

Unlike Everett…

Right after the bombing, Everett had been depressed. It had been all they could do just to make sure that he kept himself cleaned and fed; they'd all had to take turns helping out with the baby. But when Everett finally had started taking care of Lisa, he'd also started getting angry.

He wasn't vocal about his anger though, which worried Sidda more than the vocal transgenics did. She was sure that Everett was planning something, doing something. But she had no idea what it was, and none of his friends had been able to get him to talk about anything beyond the mundane.

"Maybe we'll finally get around to doing something about them," Robin said after a few moments of digestive silence.

"I don't know, Robin, I've sort of enjoyed discussing it for months on end," Alec said, his tone pointedly sarcastic.

Robin snorted at that idea. Aiden was gumming one of Alec's fingers, so he couldn't look too angry, but his annoyance at the subject was clear. Like a lot of the community, he had been enthusiastic about swooping in and wiping out Telic before they could try something else, but Max and others had overrode that maneuver with talk of peaceful negotiations. Although Telic hadn't attacked in any major way since the Cultural Center, peaceful negotiations hadn't stopped any protests, and no one was satisfied with that approach anymore.

"Well, you always have been quite the chatterer," Sidda said, leaning against Alec's arm and grinning up at him.

Robin cuddled Taylor closer as the one-year-old wriggled around and waved a little plastic ball in her hand. "Hey, cool it," she said, settling Taylor on her hip.

"Mama!" Taylor exclaimed rather enthusiastically as she grabbed the sleeve of Robin navy hoodie and tugged. She dropped the toy and then stared for her empty hand for a long, confused moment.

Robin gave a mock gasp. "Look what happened. Now what're you gonna do?" She ran her fingers through Taylor's light blond curls. With her golden hair, deep blue eyes, cliché, dimpled cherub cheeks and generally sweet and quiet personality, Taylor was considered some kind of angel hybrid by most of the transgenic population. Humans who got the chance to see her pretty much melted when she was around.

Right now, however, the cherub wanted her toy. She whipped her body towards the floor, causing Robin to have to get an iron grip on her. "Ba! Ba!" she said, reaching for the ball. When it became clear that her arms weren't long enough, she jerked herself upright and stared stretched her hands out to Sidda. "Sa-Sa!"

Alec smirked and rolled his eyes at Taylor's mangled version of Sidda's name. So far, Taylor was only really good at saying words that ended in the 'ah' sound. Oddly enough, she could manage almost any letter that came before the 'ah,' but she was still limited to 'ah' rhymes. He was sort of anxious for her to get past this stage; it was sort of embarrassing when Robin referred to him as Ah-Ah in public. She spent way too much time with the kids…and she didn't mind torturing him.

Sidda laughed and snatched the ball off the floor. Rubbing it off on the corner of her t-shirt, she handed it over to Taylor. "You're welcome," she said, grinning as Taylor grabbed the ball with both hands and stared into it with wide eyes.

"She's thankful," Robin said, sighing.

"Just haven't gotten her to say a proper Thah-Yah yet?" Alec said. He ducked as Robin attempted to hit him on the shoulder.

"You're so funny, Alec," she said sarcastically.

"You wouldn't know what to do without me," Alec said.

"Oh, yes, wherever could we find someone to head up the scavenging department?" Sidda said, throwing her hands into the air in mock despair though her grin betrayed her teasing.

"Hey, it's just another part of the job," Alec said, making a face at her as he shifted Aiden to his other arm, "And you don't want to run out of microwavable meals, do you?"

A couple months ago, Alec had been chosen to oversee all their missions out into the city, and one of the major areas that fell under that was thievery and/or bargaining and/or almost-illegal deals. Needless to say, with Alec in charge of acquisitions, Terminal City was better stocked than it ever had been before.

Robin rolled her eyes. "Hush, you never eat at home unless you have no other choice, anyways."

"I've been trying," Sidda said, brushing her hair back behind her ears, "Me and the stove just don't along, unless it's something sweet."

"Mhmm," Robin said, "I'm starting to think that's your excuse so you don't have to cook."

Sidda shrugged, not committing herself to any positive or negative answer.

"You're impossible," Robin said, "And completely ridiculous on top of that."

Alec snickered and pulled Sidda closer with his free hand, nestling her against his side. "Isn't she, though?"

Sidda punched him lightly in the shoulder. "Come on, let Robin have her peace and quiet. She doesn't need you and your words."

"Hey, my words are important." Alec frowned at the amused look that passed between the two women. "It's a conspiracy…"

"Yes, fear us," Robin said, and Taylor gave an affirmative cry of, "Ya-ya!"

With a swift movement, Sidda scooped Aiden out of Alec's arms and smiled at Robin. "Thanks for watching him again."

"No problem," Robin said, "But I might need you to return the favor…"

"Anytime," Sidda said, grinning, "Except Saturdays, Sundays, Friday nights, anytime between 1 a.m. and 12 p.m., not on holidays or any between times like dusk and dawn—"

"And my words are supposedly useless," Alec said. He put a hand on Sidda's shoulder and steered her toward the door. "Later, Robin."

"Good luck," Robin said, smirking as her two friends left the apartment.

* * *

They almost always started on time, but for once, it seemed like the meeting was going to start late. The transgenics were restless, and the contagion kept spreading, making them move around and talk even more. Discontented voices were muttering everywhere, and people kept looking around, searching for Max.

"Why is she late?" Sidda asked, looking at Alec worriedly. "She knows how unhappy everyone is."

Alec shrugged; he was one of the few who hadn't seemed to be bitten by the restless bug. Sidda knew that he planned on speaking up tonight, but as long as he got his turn to speak, she supposed he didn't really care when it happened. Aiden was in the daycare with the other babies and a few transgenics who didn't care about the meeting so they had all the time in the world.

"Maybe something new has come in," Seth said from Sidda's left. He and Robin were both there as well; they'd decided that they needed to both come since the meeting was being stressed as very important, and they'd also put Taylor in day/night care.

"Well, hopefully it's nothing bad," Sidda said. "I'm getting tired of these meetings where we found out that we've made a little progress, but in the meantime everyone who hates us is so much closer to killing us."

"No kidding," Alec said. He leaned against the support post that they were near; it went up to the loft above. That was the other bad thing about these meetings; there wasn't nearly enough seating for everyone. It was a good thing that transgenics had a better-than-average stamina. "I just love these morale-boosting meetings."

"Guys, Max," Robin said quietly. The other three quickly turned to look at the entrance to the hallway that they knew led to Max's office. There was no doubt in their minds that that was where she had been, so the reaction was automatic.

Max looked a cat that'd been dragged through hell. Her hair hung limply in a semi-knotted mess, there were shadows under her eyes despite the fact that she hardly needed any sleep, and she seemed a little pale.

"Wow," Alec said. "I don't think she looked like that this morning."

"She didn't look like that earlier this afternoon," Seth said grimly. He pulled Robin in close to him, feeling a need to make sure that his own love was there, safe, sound, and in better shape than Max.

Just behind her appeared Logan and Everett. Logan looked pissed; his jaw was clenched and his eyes were narrowed. Everett still had that wall of impenetrable calmness up that he'd developed lately. It was simply impossible to read anything behind those cool eyes and the serious face. And he'd refused hypno-therapy, not that any normal transgenic blamed him for that.

"Well, that doesn't look good," Robin observed as Everett moved away from the other two and melted into the general crowd. Was it Everett who had made Max look so upset? Was something happening with Telic?

"Does Everett ever look good these days?" Sidda sighed.

"For that matter, does Max?" Robin said. Because now that she thought about it, Max hadn't looked good since the day the Cultural Center had been bombed.

Alec laughed and shook his head. "We're just a bunch of really, really messed up transgenics."

"Because we were doing so fine before we came to Terminal City," Seth said, his lips twisting slightly in a wry smile. He squeezed Robin's waist. "Personally, I am much happier than I was at Manticore."

"Yeah…" Alec said. He looked down at Sidda and winked. "Though I do miss some of those deep cover missions. Like the ones that involved champagne and fancy hors d'oeuvres." It was a mark of his training that Alec took on a perfect French accent when he said "hors d'oevres."

"Oh, hush," Robin said before Sidda could say anything. "You know I could make any of that stuff."

"Yeah, but he also knows he has to help in the kitchen if he wants it. And you see how much Alec cooks," Sidda said. She was fond of her mate, but he hated household chores with a very male passion.

"Shh, Max is about to talk," Seth said, nodding to the center of the room. Max was standing on a table there, and she'd held up her hand for silence. The room quickly grew quiet in a few seconds; transgenics were very attentive to their surroundings and it hadn't taken them long to notice Max's hand.

"Before we start into some of the other business of this meeting, I have an announcement to make," Max said. Her voice was quiet, calm, and heavy. Seth wondered if this was what had caused her to look so awful when she came out.

"I've decided to resign whatever this position is called in May." She gave a weak laugh as conversation buzzed for a moment, and then she held up her hand again. "I can't be in charge forever, and I don't want to be. I made this announcement at the beginning of the meeting because I think we also need to start discussing what sort of government we want. Now is as good a time as any to get started.

Max was right. Though she had never been officially in charge, everyone in Terminal City had just sort of assumed it. They brought their problems to her, and they held her accountable when things went wrong. It was probably the latter that had really taken a toll on Max; she doubtless didn't want all that responsibility resting on her.

"All right, let's move on to the Familiar report," Logan said, interrupting the renewed conversations. He held up a piece of paper. "To protect our deep covers, our agent wrote us a report instead of appearing in public. He doesn't want to risk blowing the assignment." Logan looked around for a moment, then back down at the paper. "I'll just go ahead and read it, unless anyone objects," he said.

No one did.

"Though it has been hard to get any information on the Familiars at all, what with their being a secret from even the government, we have managed to glean a few facts. The most notable being that there is actually a split in the Familiars. There are those who are the type we are most acquainted with; we term them "the reactionaries." And then there are those we term "the traditionalists." The reactionaries are those who agreed with White's way of thinking. They seek to destroy all transgenics, thinking of us as a sort of abomination and a threat to their whole culture. The traditionalists, however, are more involved in the government, and more concerned with public image. For now, they prefer to use us in exchange for our cooperation. Their plans for the future are unclear, but whatever they want to do, they want to do it quietly. To them, the reactionaries are too messy and too public, and in the minds of the traditionalists, are becoming a danger and a threat. Both groups are getting aggravated with the other. Our hope is to exploit this somehow, and cause them to turn against each other."

Logan looked up, a half-smile on his face. A weakness if the ranks of the Familiars was definitely a good thing.

"That's the end of the report," he said simply, clicking the microphone off and then setting it down.

"Well, that's fan-freakin'-tastic," someone snapped from the loft, "It's either be used or be killed with them."

"Doesn't have to be," Mole said. The reptilian transhuman was sitting a table near the front of the room, a cigar dangling from the corner of his mouth. "We can kill them just as soon as they'd try to kill us. And we can do it better."

"Oh, yeah, great idea," said a female X6. She shot Mole a glare. "Because killing sprees are really going to make us look good to the Ordinaries."

"I'm sick and tired of caring what Ordinaries think," someone shouted from the back of the room. There was a grumble of agreement, and the person who said it stepped forward. It was Jaz, sporting newly dyed purple hair, a scowl on her face. "They don't care about us, why should we care what they think?"

"Because they're the people who control our existence?" the other X6 replied, a condescending expression on her face, "Or did you forget that they're the ones with all the bombs?" Jaz let out an animalistic hiss, but the other X6 ignored her.

"Calm down," Seth said, his calm voice rising so he could be heard over the conversation that was starting to break out among the transgenics. "We need to think about this rationally, or we're going to end up just like the Familiars, broken into opposing factions."

"Seems to be working good for them," Mole said, throwing a frown at the X5, "Kill us or use us, whichever, either way, we're still looking down the barrel of the gun pointed at us in the end."

"Unless we turn the gun on them," someone called out, and there was a volley of agreement.

"And the mob goes wild," Alec teased, his voice only audible to Sidda as he bent down near her ear.

She glanced back at him, a wry expression on her face. "Can't we keep it to a dull pandemonium?"

He shook his head with a mischievous look on his face, and she leaned back against him, glad that he always took everything in stride. Alec never lost his head, no matter the situation, and she would always love him for that.

Logan and Max exchanged a look, and Max leveled the group with a glare.

"Look, we're not going to be labeled as the dangerous faction of militant freaks who've taken to assassinating government officials," she said, staring them all down, "We do that and we're all dead, Familiars or no."

"So, basically are choices are death or death," another transgenic piped up, his tone dark, "Because I don't really see another way out of this."

"Then you're stupid," Alec announced without any preface. Sidda caught his hand and squeezed it as he stepped out, catching everyone's attention. "Look, I'm all for kicking some Familiar ass, but let's face it, they've got the high ground when it comes to governmental preference."

"So what're you suggesting, Pretty Face?" one of the transhumans sneered, her forked tongue slithering out of the corner of her mouth.

"Turn them against each other," Alec said with an unapologetic shrug, "If we're not smart enough to set the old school Familiars against White and his gang, then we're a pretty pathetic lot anyways." Smirking, he looked around the room and then glanced at Seth for support.

"He's right," Seth said slowly.

Mole gave a sarcastic snort. "You'd say that. He's your best friend."

"No, I'd tell him if he was wrong," Seth said, crossing his arms over his chest, "But I think he's right. This time."

"Thanks, buddy," Alec muttered, rolling his eyes. Seth ignored him.

"Look, we have more military training in this one room than most of the U.S. military has combined, and we're skilled enough to execute almost plan we come up with," Seth said, his normally quiet voice carrying throughout the crowd. "We're up against a lot. Most of the nation hates us or thinks we're going to launch a world-domination attack at any time."

"Which would be awesome," Dalton announced from where he was sitting on the catwalk, "Transgenic Nation, here we come!" There were some tension-breaking chuckles before everyone looked back toward Seth.

"Max is right too. We need to show people that we're not just military machines. So going out and killing a seemingly innocent group of people isn't going to get us any favor," he said, "But if we make them reveal themselves, show that they're really the ones who really want to eradicate the human race."

"Why don't we just let them?" Jaz asked, a fierce glare on her face, "That'd be one less group of haters we'd have to deal with."

The room was quiet, and most eyes were focused on Logan, the only Ordinary in the room. He didn't squirm under those stares; instead, he gave a small, sardonic smile. "Well, if the only solution to your problems is killing everyone in your way, then far be it for a race of almost seven billion people stand in your way."

Jaz refused to look away, at least until Max gave her such a scathing look that she was forced to look at the floor. "We are not going to be like the Familiars," Max declared, brown eyes burning, "I don't want to hear another word about knocking off the human race, got it?"

The silence lasted a few more moments before Dix broke it. "All right, so let's say we do decide to expose the Familiars. How do we get them reveal themselves? They're not exactly going to parade around with banners proclaiming they're human-killers."

"We do have Eyes Only," Krit said from where he and Syl were standing on the catwalk, "Seattle's darling. Couldn't he be America's, too?"

"What, you want Logan to make Eyes Only a nationwide cablehack?" Max asked incredulously, but she didn't see the gleam in Logan's eyes.

"Great, we depend on an Ordinary for our survival. That's always worked out so well in the past," Jaz said darkly. She looked around for support, but everyone was ignoring her at this point since her comments weren't very constructive.

The female X6 who'd spoken up earlier leaned forward, a gleam matching Logan's in her eyes. "You know," she said slowly, "that wouldn't be such a bad ideas. We'd need to gather some evidence that they plan on killing humans first, of course, but once we have it…"

"The Ordinaries would know, and the Familiars would be suspicious of each other and angry, if they thought one of them had turned traitor," Logan said excitedly. He was all for anything that would get his message promoted across the country.

Seth exchanged a look with Alec, who nodded. This was much better than taking out all the humans, and it would work well towards the goal of getting the Familiars to turn on each other and take care of themselves. If they could somehow plant evidence before the broadcast was released, then the different sects of Familiars would be only too happy to get rid of the other. It could work quite well.

"I could definitely help you set up a nation-wide hack," Krit was saying, getting into that usual excited mode that came out whenever someone started talking about anything that involved some skill with technology. Krit loved and needed to feel useful to Terminal City, and the stuff they were talking about was right up his alley.

More conversations broke out as people debated between themselves if using Eyes Only was a good idea, and how exactly they would go about getting the evidence they would need for the broadcast. Getting into Familiar territory wasn't exactly the easiest thing for a transgenic to do, especially if they were trying to get evidence from the group more likely to be violent towards Ordinaries: White's reactionaries.

"So wait, does this mean we're leaving the humans alone?" Jaz's sharp, incredulous voice cut above the hum of the gathered transgenics' conversations. "We're not doing anything about them?" When no one automatically supported her, Jaz added. "I'm not suggesting we knock them off here, but still…shouldn't something be done about them?"

Alec rolled his eyes. Jaz had such a one-track mind; it was very difficult to convince her to change her opinion once her mind was made up. And then there was the matter of public honor. In her mind she would lose face if her idea wasn't chosen.

"And what brilliant plan do you have, exactly?" he asked. "Since apparently bringing the Familiars' plan to their attention doesn't count as doing something about the humans' opinions of us?"

Jaz was silent for a moment, and her cheeks turned red with what was probably controlled anger. "There was that hate group Everett got into," she finally said, bringing up something that had been quietly not talked about for a while. "I don't see why we can't deal with people like those."

There was absolute silence. That was a sore point for many of the transgenics there, and there were many who were still bitter about the fact that Max hadn't let them take their revenge on Telic yet. And this was probably the root of what had caused Max to announce that they needed to decide on an official form of government so that she could step down.

"Telic will be taken care of," Everett said flatly, glancing at Max once, then back to Jaz. "There are those of us who will make sure of it." His tone allowed for no argument, and there were several murmurs around the room at his statement. Max's eyes narrowed with anger, but she didn't say anything. At this point, she was probably just hoping that whatever revenge was taken would be quiet. There was no way she could keep the transgenics away from Telic for forever. At least enough time had passed that the transgenics wouldn't automatically be linked to Telic killings. Hopefully.

Jaz sat back at that statement, her eyes fixed on Everett. She didn't say anything more, because there was no reason for her to. What she wanted was going to happen, and she was probably going to try and be a part of it.

"I sort of feel sorry for Max," Sidda whispered to Alec. She turned to look at him. "I wouldn't want to be stuck in the middle of this situation."

"Definitely not," Alec murmured as he held her close to him. He still remembered the bombing, and the panic he'd felt when he'd been certain Sidda was dead. If she had died, Alec probably would have been right up there with Everett, making life difficult for Max. And that was the problem. It was easy to see why the transgenics wanted to go after Telic, but it was also possible to see the other side, why they shouldn't go after the organization.

Logan called the meeting to order after that; a note was made to put a group together to look into solidifying the plan against the Familiars, and then they moved on to the topic of what sort of governmental system they wanted Terminal City to have.

Sidda yawned and leaned back against Alec again. It was going to be a long night.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own _Dark Angel_!

A/N: Thank you to wizziewoo123, BlueEyedPisces, and peculiarxemma for reviewing the last chapter! You guys are AMAZING! ^_^ Love you dearly. Sorry I didn't update on Friday, I'm at Dragon*Con and tiiiiiiired. So if there are any mistakes in this chapter...yeah, I blame that.

**EX Multus Familia: Part Three**

Chapter 2

Everett was satisfied with the result of the meeting. When he'd originally decided to go after Telic he'd wanted to do it alone, so that he could make sure that every person he hated in there would see his face before they died.

But then he'd realized that that wasn't fair. There had been others who'd lost loved ones to the Cultural Center bombing, and they ought to have their chance at revenge too. Everett had no right to deny them that. So he was giving them their chance. They now knew he was planning something, and if they wanted to, they would come see him. He'd already met with four transgenics who had wanted in on the mission.

He opened the door to Lisa's bedroom and carried her inside. She'd been asleep when he'd pick her up from the daycare, and she'd stayed that way the whole ride home. She was actually a pretty solid sleeper, something that Everett appreciated greatly.

He put her down in the crib and then stood over it for a moment, thinking about how beautiful she already was. The longer he delayed in going through with his plan, the harder it was becoming to think of leaving her, but it was really all for Lisa's good anyway. She wouldn't want a shadow for a father. And he knew Gem would take good care of her when he was gone.

Everett brushed his hand along his daughter's downy hair, letting the back of his fingers rest on her soft cheek. She already reminded him of her mother, and she wasn't even old enough to start really looking like her yet. What was he going to do when she was a teenager? How was he supposed to raise her without her mother?

Everett stepped back from the crib and ran his hand through his hair, wishing for the thousandth time today that Mona was here. He just wanted things to be the way they had been before…

He lifted his head as someone knocked on the door; the sound was accompanied by the scent of spaghetti drifting through the apartment. Expecting Gem, Everett quietly snuck out of Lisa's room and hurried to the front door, not wanting a lecture from the female X5 about how he needed to pay attention to his visitors.

Throughout the past few months, Gem had been his savior. She had been at his apartment constantly, bringing food, helping him with Lisa, talking to him about his plans for Telic. She wasn't exactly happy about the course he had chosen, but she had accepted it and hadn't tried to fight with him about it. Everett appreciated that, and he appreciated Gem.

Prepared to be bombarded with food and the redheaded cook, Everett opened the door. He was caught off guard when Seth thrust a plate covered with tinfoil at him.

"Robin says hey," Seth said, a slightly embarrassed look on his face, "She also said that you have to eat this…" He gave Everett a long-suffering smile. "She just wants to make sure you're not starving, which I told her you were capable of taking care of yourself."

Everett shrugged. "I can always use free food." He took the plate from Seth and nodded towards the interior of his apartment, knowing that Seth wasn't just here as a delivery boy. The other transgenic entered, bringing his usual air of calm and control. Seth was just like that, Everett had realized. You could stick the guy in the middle of a battle, and he'd be the same collected, composed Seth. He was someone you could count on.

"How's Lisa?" Seth asked, glancing towards the hallway.

"About the same as any other kid around here," Everett answered as he walked over to the kitchen. "No marks yet, but I guess it'll be any day now." He peeled the tinfoil off the plate. A sinfully wonderful scent exploded from the plate, filling the apartment with the smell of parmesan, thick meat-based sauce and well-cooked noodles. Everett took a deep breath and then gave a small smile. "I'm tempted to just eat it with my hands."

Seth laughed. "I'll let Robin know you liked it."

"She and Gem could team up and open a restaurant," Everett said as he searched for a fork. He found one in the dish drain, leftover from when he and Dalton had washed the dishes last night after a meal Gem had cooked for them. "Or reopen the mess hall." Last month, the mess hall had been closed down since most people had taken to cooking for themselves or felt like the mess hall was too much like the Manticore dining facilities.

"That would be one way to branch out to the Ordinaries," Seth said nonchalantly as he sat down on a stool at the kitchen counter.

Everett clenched his hand around the fork, bending the metal. When Jaz had said what she had about Ordinaries tonight…Everett still didn't know where he stood on the issue. He had a hard time condemning an entire species, but if they could kill people like Mona just because they were different… He didn't want any other transgenic to have to go through what he had; people shouldn't have to lose a part of them.

"Everett."

"What," Everett said, stabbing the fork into the spaghetti. He could feel Seth watching him, and he didn't particularly like it.

"Do you mind telling me exactly what it is you're planning?" the other transgenic asked.

Everett thought about shoving the forkful of spaghetti into his mouth and then thought about how childish that would be. Besides, from his tone, it didn't sound like Seth was going to stop him without hearing him out.

Everett sat down at the counter, across from Seth. He took his time to chew and swallow his spaghetti, and then he swirled it around in the spaghetti as he spoke.

"Well, I've been planning for a while, so I'm not rushing into things," Everett said, a defensive note creeping into his voice despite his best intentions. He glanced up to see Seth's reaction, but Seth was an impenetrable stone wall.

Everett continued. "I've been finding and staking out the houses of the top leaders of Telic since I know who most of them are. I figure they're the guys who probably issued the order, and without them Telic won't be a threat anymore."

"Makes sense," Seth commented.

Everett nodded, encouraged by the fact that Seth wasn't criticizing anything he had set yet. "I'm thinking we take them out one at a time, maybe a few if a couple of them get together at one person's house. We space their deaths several days apart so they look less connected, and have each individual or group die in a different way, and by a different transgenics' hands, so that they really can't be connected. At the end it will be obvious at we're going after Telic members, and it'll be harder for us to get the last few. But I'm pretty sure we can handle it, and my hope is to make it look like a coup-assassination from the inside."

"Which technically, some people would think it was, if they knew the mastermind behind the plan," Seth said slowly. His mouth quirked slightly, but that was the only sign he gave that he was amused by the slight irony of Everett's plan.

"You're right," Seth said, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the counter. "You have a pretty well-thought out plan."

They looked at each other for a moment, and Everett took another bite of spaghetti. Whatever Seth wanted to say, Everett could wait for him to get around to it.

"I want in on it," Seth finally said. "And Alec does as well." Everett had sort of been expecting them to ask, but at the same time he hadn't really thought they would. After all, their families were alive and intact; what reason did they have to put themselves in danger?

"Are you sure about that?" Everett asked. "Just because you're my friend doesn't mean you have to do this. I want people who want to do this."

Seth snorted and then stood up to get a cup for a drink; Everett hadn't changed anything around since Mona died, so it was easy for Seth to find what he was looking for. He filled the cup with water from the fridge, then sat back down.

"Alec and I talked about it," he said. "Sidda and Robin aren't exactly crazy about us doing this, but they understand. That bombing freaked us out, and just because we didn't lose someone that time doesn't mean we might not the next time. We don't want this to happen again, and we don't think Telic should go unpunished just because they attacked transgenics instead of humans. If the government won't punish them for what they did, then somebody should." He took a sip of water and then waited for Everett's response.

Everett nodded, glad to hear his friend say that. Every now and then, if you listened to Max, you would think that all the transgenics had gone soft at heart and wanted to everything the bureaucratic, no-results way just because it was supposed to be "right."

But if you looked hard enough, and you dug too deeply into a transgenics's feelings and instincts, you usually found at the core the soldier that they had all been trained to be. They knew how to make tactical decisions, they knew how to be cold-blooded when necessary for the sake of the mission or group. If they were threatened, they did something about it.

And that was what Everett was looking for in the people he took with on his mission. He didn't want the people who wanted to be softies. He wanted the people who knew they had that soldier in them, and the people that could make tough decisions if they had to. Max was a good girl, but every now and then her soft side led to her making some pretty stupid decisions.

"All right," Everett said. "We meet here tomorrow night to distribute targets and go over the whole plan."

Seth took a gulp of water and then put the cup in the sink. "Alec and I will be here," he promised. He clapped Everett on the back briefly, then headed toward the door. "Take care of yourself, Everett," he said right before leaving.

Everett nodded. "I will." For now. The future…was still uncertain.

"Do you think it's too much?" Robin asked, glancing at her best friend out of the corner of her eyes.

Sidda walked around Syl and Krit's living room, her eyebrows quirked. "If you don't mind living in a jungle atmosphere."

Robin frowned, knowing Sidda was picking on her. "Be serious, Sidda." She glanced around the little apartment living room, wondering if she really had gone overboard with the dark green paint and matching decorations. It had been one of the last cans of paint from a previous supply run, and Syl had really liked it. Robin personally thought it was a little too dark, but Syl and Krit had both been excited about it. Maybe they had too much jungle cat in their blood.

"It's perfectly lovely," Sidda said with a bite to her voice. She flopped down onto Krit's armchair and bent down to scoop up Aiden from his baby carrier. He was a few months old now, and much larger than his original bean-sized self. He stared up at her with those big green eyes and waved his fists while he grinned. Sidda managed to smile back at him.

Robin glanced over at Sidda. "All right, someone's in a mood." She walked over to the couch and tickled Taylor's toes as she sat down. It had been a few days since the meeting, and everyone in TC could feel tension building in the air as Everett and his crew prepared to leave. To bring less suspicion to TC by having them go in and out over a period of a couple weeks, the transgenic team was going to stay away from the sector within a sector, complete their mission and then return. There was also the fact that some of the Telic members would undoubtedly skip town after their buddies started showing up dead, so then there would be the whole trouble of tracking them down and taking them out in hotels and safehouses.

No one was really sure who was part of the team since it technically wasn't an official TC mission, but both Robin and Sidda were quite aware that Seth and Alec had signed themselves up. They had given their blessings, but as the days grew closer to when they were supposed to leave…

Sidda sighed and stroked Aiden's peach-fuzz hair. "I'm just pissed about this Telic thing," she grumbled, "I mean, I know we're doing the right thing…"

"But you're worried about Alec going."

She shook her head, a half-smile on her face. "No, I'd like to go with him," she said, "But we decided that I should stay behind and look after Aiden." Looking over at Robin, she frowned. "I'm just…I don't know. I guess I'm just annoyed with having this problem in the first place."

Robin nodded. She had felt the same way for a long time now, even before the first Cultural Center had been bombed. "I know. They're afraid of us."

"And what exactly are we supposed to do about that?" Sidda asked, standing up from the chair, Aiden nestled in her arms. "I mean, come on, Robin, we show them how we're human, they get freaked out and say we're infiltrating them. We show them that we're different and can help out, and they assume we're going to take over the world." Sidda huffed and gently poked Aiden's stomach. "Like we'd want their stinkin', ruined world, huh, baby?" She looked back up again. "We're stuck."

Robin glanced over at Taylor. "There's got to be a way to show them otherwise," she said, grabbing and squeezing Taylor's toes to make her laugh, "We just haven't found it out yet."

"And if they figure out we're behind these killings," Sidda said. She shook her head. "They're going to look at us first, Everett has to understand that."

"I don't think he really cares," Robin said, "That was one of Seth's reasons for going with him."

"I know," Sidda replied, "I know. But we're still going to be the prime suspects, and this time, they're right."

Robin chewed her bottom lip, returning to a thought she had been mulling over since Seth had decided to go with Everett. "Do you think it's right?"

"What, knocking off Telic members?" Sidda said. She walked over to the window, bouncing Aiden a little bit. "I don't know," she said after a few quiet moments. She looked back towards Robin with a soft smile. "If I was still a nun-in-training, I'd say something about turning the other cheek, but…I don't think we can just let this go. Besides, I'm not a nun-in-training anymore."

"Really, couldn't tell that, especially since you had a baby and everything," Robin replied, smirking at her friend. "But I understand. It does seem sort of…wrong. Like we're acting the same way they would."

"But we shouldn't have to live in constant fear of them either, and there's not really a democratic way of dealing with a hate group," Sidda replied. She wandered over to the kitchen, actions quick and agitated. "Where are Syl and Krit, anyway?"

"Syl's on a supply run and Krit's updating surveillance with Logan and Dix," Robin answered, "I just thought I'd work on the apartment while they were gone." She scooped up Taylor and set the one-year-old down in her lap, holding the chubby cherub arms. "I understand the necessity, but it still seems like we shouldn't have to go out and kill people just to get a place in the world."

Sidda sighed, thinking about how much simpler life was before she had anyone to care about. It had been easy to make necessary decisions, as long as she didn't have time to get close to anyone. But of course, she would never trade what she had now; she loved having Alec and Aiden in her life, as well as her friends and the whole Terminal City community. And that was what frustrated her about Ordinaries; the transgenics were living as normal and human a lifestyle as they could, but the Ordinaries didn't see that that was what mattered. They chose to focus on the differences and wouldn't leave the transgenics in peace. Which was where the hard decisions came in.

"They make us resort to killing," Sidda said, turning to face Robin. "We don't really have a choice because they won't let us have one."

Robin nodded. "I wonder if it will be like they think, though?" she asked, "It's been a while since they really had to be soldiers and go out and kill people in cold blood." She twisted a curl of Taylor's hair around a finger. "I'm afraid that they'll do it, and then they'll realize they don't feel any better."

"But they won't be happy either if they don't get to do this," Sidda replied, "And they'll resent us if we try to stop them."

"So in the end we have to let them go do it," Robin said, smiling bitterly. "I know."

"I'm surprised they haven't really said much or made a fuss about it." Seth was frowning as he examined a list of supplies that were going to be taken out that night to one of the apartments they'd gotten a hold of for the mission. There were six different apartments, each in the sector one of the prime targets lived in. This way, they could keep an eye on the target and not worry about creating too much traffic.

"I assume you mean Sidda and Robin, and not the supply boxes?" Alec asked, grinning at his friend.

Seth rolled his eyes. "I just really expected Robin to ask me not to go, or to consider the risks, or just something…"

Alec leaned against one of the stack of boxes. "Well, what did she say to you?"

Seth shrugged. "She just told me that if I was sure that that was what I wanted to do, then okay." He shrugged. "That was all."

"Yeah…Sidda actually wanted to go with me, but when I suggested that one of us needed to stay and look after Aiden, she didn't get stubborn on me like I thought she would." Alec idly traced the edge of one of the boxes and then glanced at Seth. "I don't think her heart was really in it; I think she just wanted to be there with me for whatever happened."

"It's…difficult," Seth said slowly. He set the clipboard and list down and nodded to Alec to indicate that they could start loading the boxes into the van that was waiting to go to Sector 5. "We're killing people, which, according to all human laws, is a bad thing. But we're also protecting people."

"And we're also going back to one of the oldest human codes," Alec said. "Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth."

"Code of Hammurabi," Seth said, nodding. He remembered learning about that in their History of Government and Warfare class. "Also found in modern times," he reminded Alec. "Look at the United States. Despite everything, many states still have the death penalty."

"Legalized killing," Alec replied.

Seth nodded. "We're basically just taking the middleman out when we go straight for Telic. Plus, with the justice system as corrupt as it is, we're actually serving a more fair justice, handing down a sentence we know for a fact these people should have received under the government's laws."

"I guess the problem people have with it is that we're removing the middleman. We're going vigilante." Alec couldn't help but grin a little bit. Something about the term 'vigilante' appealed to him; it was probably the fact that it implied doing the right thing, but still taking orders from no one.

"We're also taking all of the guilt for killing on ourselves, rather than putting it on the legal system," Seth said soberly. And that was going to be the toughest part for everyone in the end. Killing would bring satisfaction, but would the aftermath?

They finished loading the van in silence; they would add a few more supplies tomorrow, and then the day after that Seth would come back to take the van to Sector 5. Alec would be taking another van to Sector 2.

"Well, I better get home," Alec said after they had shut the van's back doors. "Sidda's warned me that she's attempting to cook a whole meal tonight, so I better be back to try it."

Seth chuckled. "If it fails, you know where there are always leftovers."

"Definitely," Alec said. "I'll see you for lunch tomorrow!" he called out as he headed towards his motorcycle. The two families usually had lunch together and dinners separately now, although every now and then when either Sidda or Robin didn't feel like doing all the cooking they would pool resources for dinner.

Seth waved goodbye to Alec and then headed to his own motorcycle. He had to stop by Everett's again to give Everett the checked-off list, but then he too would be going home to spend the evening with the family. He instinctively knew that Robin would want as much time as possible with him before he went off on his own for several weeks on what could potentially be a dangerous mission. They were only Ordinaries, but they were also radicals. And radicals…well, you never know what they might resort to when they got desperate.

Alec grinned as he relaxed in their bed, Sidda pressed up against his side as she flipped through the pages of some 2-pound novel and Aiden resting on his chest, fast asleep after dinner. Alec couldn't complain about the meal Sidda had fixed tonight, no matter what misgivings he had had before he had come home. Ribs, potatoes, corn, garlic bread, and strawberry shortcake in a bowl for desert. Did Sidda think she had to feed an army? Whatever, he wasn't going to complain any time soon.

Without displacing Aiden, he reached over and stroked her back, grinning as she let out that irrepressible purr.

"Oh, Alec, don't do that," Sidda said, but the way she said it sounded like she meant the opposite. He trailed his finger up her spine and then down again, slowly, just to hear her purr.

"You're not mad at me, are you?" Alec asked, wondering if that meal had been a precursor to kicking him out of the apartment. He wasn't entirely sure if Sidda was sold on the idea of him leaving for a couple weeks to go on this mission. She seemed okay with it, but she had given up the fight so easily…he was almost prepared for scathing fury.

"Yes, I'm just hissing mad," Sidda said, rolling over to face him. The content smile on her face faltered and turned suspicious. "Why, should I be?"

"No, geez," Alec said, "It was just a question."

"So, no sleeping around with other women?" Now she was teasing him. She sat up and smirked at him, almost devilish in her playfulness. "No flirting with the enemy?" She pulled her head back a little and affected a surprised, hurt look. "Tell me you haven't started shacking up with Familiar women!"

"Sidda," Alec growled with a smile. He reached up and grabbed her wrist, pulling her down to him so that she lying partway on his chest, right next to their son. "If I was going to sleep around, I don't think I'd take my chances with Familiars, especially when there're plenty of willing women in TC."

Sidda planted an elbow in his chest and propped herself up. "Is that so?"

"Definitely. There's one in my bed right now," he said, knocking her elbow out from under her and stealing a kiss as she landed beside him. Sidda nipped at his lip and pulled back, the smile on her face not quite reaching her eyes. "Come on, Sidda, what is it?"

"I don't know, nothing, I guess," she said, sitting up. She scooped up Aiden from Alec's chest and held the sleeping baby in her lap as she leaned back against Alec.

"Yeah, sure, nothing," Alec said. He traced a couple designs with his pointer finger on her leg. "You're such a girl."

"And you're such a guy," Sidda said, tossing a smirk at him as she settled against his ribcage. "I'm just…angry? Upset?" She turned to look over her shoulder. "Maybe a little bitter."

Alec was quiet for a moment, just looking at her while she cradled Aiden. "I don't have to go if you don't want me to."

Sidda laughed. "I'm not angry with you," she said, nudging him, "It's everything out there. I just wish it didn't get in here." She huffed and pushed some of her thick dark blond hair back from her face. "You know?"

"I know," he said, "That's why we stopped watching the news, remember?" He looked at her with a practiced sober face. She mirrored the expression until both of them cracked smiles. Alec laughed and grabbed her arm, pulling her down next to him, careful to make sure Aiden wasn't jostled too much. They laid there for a few silent moments, Alec matching Sidda's breathing. "You understand why I'm doing this, right?"

She nodded. "But I still don't know if it's the right thing to do."

"We can't just let that happen again," Alec said, rubbing his hand down her arm, "Last time…" He didn't like to talk about last time. No one really did.

Sidda tilted her head and kissed his cheek. "You don't want to worry about another time. I don't either."

"No," he said emphatically, "So you're okay with it?"

"Since there's no other choice, yes," Sidda said, nuzzling against him with Aiden in her arms, "But I just wish there was something else we could do."

He brushed his hand down her side and then rested it on his son's back, wishing he didn't have to leave them to protect them. "Me too, Sidda."


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel so don't sue me. Thanks. :-)

A/N: Thank you to wizziewoo123, BlueEyedPisces, and peculiarxemma for reviewing the last chapter! Y'all rock so much! ^_^

**Ex Multus Familia: Part 3**

Chapter 3

Seth dumped his stuff on the floor and grimaced as he stared around the apartment. Maybe this mission would be good for him, because he was already missing the cheerful colors and warm scents of the apartment he and Robin had in TC. He was getting soft and spoiled.

There wasn't much to the apartment, and there didn't need to be. The kitchen was a tiny hallway-like area that only had a sink, mini-fridge, and a microwave…no stove. Probably couldn't meet building codes if it did or something. The bathroom was about the size of the closet right next to it, and the living room doubled as a bedroom. But that was okay; he didn't plan on being in the apartment much.

He tried the switch next to the door, and smiled with satisfaction as the light flickered on after a few moments. "Well, at least that works." It was odd not to hear someone make a smart remark back.

Well, to business. Seth knelled down and opened up the first of the three boxes he'd brought to the apartment. This one contained his weaponry and essential tools. Guns, knives, razor wire, lock pins, gloves, a pin light, and a sneak suit. He'd probably put everything on tonight except for the sneak suit when he went on his area-scouting mission.

The next box contained a few basic starter supplies- a bag of a couple of packaged meals (including four that Robin had made for him to put in the fridge), some clothes, toothbrush, etc. Nothing exciting.

The last one, the smallest one, had whatever background Everett had been able to get on the target before they left TC. It included Everett's own personal reports about and assessment of the target, a layout of the target's house, a list of the target's close contacts within Telic and locations he had frequently mentioned. It was a good, solid starting place. The thoroughness of it all was a little scary when Seth thought about the fact that Everett had made up a package almost identical to this for every other target. Seth decided not to think about that.

No time to waste; or rather, no reason to waste time. Seth grabbed up a few guns and a knife. Tonight he would simply scout the area as a normal Sector 5 citizen. Unless it looked especially promising for some reason, he would hold off on entering the premises of the target's location until tomorrow night. He had promised Robin that he wouldn't take any unnecessary risks, even if that meant he had to stay away from TC longer.

It was a cold night, and Seth was thankful for the higher internal temperature that came with his DNA. He was dressed about the same as the Ordinaries around him, but he'd bet a million bucks that he was more comfortable than they were.

The target's apartment wasn't in a particularly noteworthy area of the sector. It wasn't the worst neighborhood, but it wasn't great either. The ironic thing was that this was actually the sector that both Max and Alec had lived in for a while.

Alec had actually offered to come to this sector since he knew it pretty well, but as Everett pointed out, it knew him as well. It was better for Seth to go; no one would remember seeing an old friend suddenly reappear and then disappear around the time of a murder; and old friend that quite a few people in the sector knew was transgenic.

Seth stopped in a doorway across from the target's resident and slouched against the wall, blending into the shadows and the cold, dirty concrete. It was a random doorway to a closed-up building; no one should be entering or exiting from it.

He pulled down his toboggan so that his eyes were shadowed. No one would notice him here; hardly anyone even looked up from the ground in front of their feet. His eyes scanned upward until he located the third floor, and then over until his gaze came to rest on the third balcony over from the right. There was nothing remarkable on the balcony; probably because if you left anything out there and didn't watch it, it could easily get stolen in an area like this.

He stuck his hands into his pockets, wondering just how long he would have to wait for anything to happen. It was highly tempting to just go in and get the layout of the place now; it was highly unlikely that anyone would notice he'd visited the apartment for the first time the day before the murder.

It was extremely tempting.

But there was that promise to Robin. And Seth could tell from the lights that there were people in the apartment right now…it would make much more sense if Seth watched the area for a few days, made sure he knew who lived in the apartment, made sure that he knew their patterns of comings and goings, and made sure he knew the exact layout of the target's personal apartment. Then nothing would happen that he wasn't prepared for.

And because, above all, Seth was a trained strategist, he did what he had been drilled over and over again to do. He was patient because he could afford to be. He was patient because other elements of the mission depended on him giving them time to case their own locales. He was patient because he had to be.

And so he settled into his doorway to wait.

* * *

Dressed in her favorite pair of silk pajamas, Robin contemplated what color to paint the walls so that Seth would come home to a freshly painted and redecorated apartment when he came back. Hopefully she would only be halfway through the process by the time he walked by through the door, but she wasn't just going to sit there in her lonely apartment without him and do nothing every night. No, she was going to stay active; as long as the apartment was changing, maybe she wouldn't miss him so much.

She turned around slowly in the living room, her arms crossed as she mulled over color patterns. Dark blue? No, she had painted it navy back when Seth had gone on his mission to the Middle East. Maybe some shade of tan? No, she didn't like tan all that much… Purple? No, no, Seth wouldn't like purple, even if it was a nice eggplant shade. She wanted something warm, something that would welcome Seth home and show him that she had been thinking about him.

"What do you think about cinnamon-sugar red?" Robin asked, turning to look at Taylor, who was standing up and holding onto the side of her playpen. She gurgled fussily and bounced, her cherub face crossed with a frown.

Robin smiled. "I'm hoping that's not a no to the color," she said, walking over and scooping Taylor up from the playpen. The one and a half year old whimpered and grabbed at her mother's shirt before burying her face in the crook of her mother's neck. She gave a little half-hearted cry. Robin patted Taylor's back and swayed. "Hey, why're we crying?" She thought she knew the answer. Taylor was quite the Daddy's Girl, and she was probably missing Seth as much as Robin was. She had been looking at the door for most of the evening and as time went by and Seth didn't walk in, she had become quieter.

Robin shushed her and hummed the melody from a Pre-Pulse song she had heard on the radio the other day as she walked around the apartment. "Really, though, I think a nice cinnamon reddish color would be very nice. We could trim with a different color, and I think it'd still match the couch, so we don't necessarily have to get new furniture."

Taylor only cried louder and pressed her head harder against Robin's shoulder.

"Well, I like it," Robin said, almost feeling like crying herself. But no, Manticore soldiers didn't cry, even when it was their time of the month and their mate left them to go on some crazy revenge mission that involved obscured morals, and they had to eat dinner all alone because they didn't want to sound pathetic to their friends by begging them to come over, and, and… She sat down on the couch and blinked away the obviously hormonally-charged tears that were at the corners of her eyes.

A half-smile came to her face as she tried to sooth Taylor. Her instructors at Manticore would be seriously appalled its handcrafted bodyguard right now. Back in Manticore, she had been so composed and goal-oriented…and now she was redecorating apartments and wishing her husband was back home. From soldier to homemaker, she had made a full evolution now.

Of course, she wasn't just a homemaker. No, there was far too much to do around TC for her to be baking cookies and cleaning their little apartment all day long. Besides, if that was all she had to do, she probably would lose her mind like the women in those movies about psychopathic killer housewives from the suburbs who ended up spicing up their pot roasts with cyanide and hanging nooses from the stairwells. Nope, Robin kept herself busy at HQ and other places, doing odd jobs wherever they needed her and sitting in on meetings when her opinion was wanted.

She lifted her head as the door to the apartment flew open, and female laughter came from the short hallway that led to the living room. Robin stood up, and Taylor twisted around in her arms toward the noise as Syl appeared in the living room, quickly followed by Max, Gem holding Crystal and Sidda bringing up the rear with Aiden in his baby carrier. All of them were in their pajamas, which were mostly hoodie, t-shirt and loose pants, except for Syl who preferred the scantily-clad bootie shorts and tank top.

"What's going on?" Robin said, eyeing the four of them with suspicion.

"Girl's Night-In," Syl said with a shrug, as if that was all the explanation that was needed. She walked over to the TV and turned it on. "Hope you don't mind watching something that doesn't have fluffy stuffed bears or ponies in it." She tossed a grin back at Robin. "I know what kind of movies you watch nowadays."

Robin switched which hip Taylor was sitting on. "Uh, I still don't think I'm following."

"We've been dragged into Syl's idea of a good time," Max said with a sigh as she walked over and sat down on the couch. The TC leader was still looking worse for wear with her dark-shadowed eyes and skinny-looking figure, and Robin felt sorry for her. Max needed a break, and maybe this was Syl's way of forcing Max to relax in some way.

"This is my idea of a passive good time," Syl said, waving the DVD case in the air. Robin caught the title; it was something like The Day After The Day After Tomorrow: The New Ice Age. The front of the cover was a dark-haired man and a woman being chased down by some kind of hairy elephant. "If we were really going to go have a good time, we'd leave the kids with some trusted individual and hit the clubs." Before the others could protest, Syl held up her hands. "But, since I couldn't find a trusted individual on such short notice, we're stuck vegging out on B-grade action movies."

"I don't know if I'm up for the excitement," Sidda said with a teasing smile, but she claimed a spot on the couch beside Max after Aiden's baby carrier on the floor in front of her. She looked over at Robin. "Come on, it'll be fun."

"Depends on if anyone gets eaten in this movie," Gem said as she set Crystal down in Taylor's playpen. The red-headed baby automatically tossed herself at Taylor's toys, putting Taylor's second-favorite doll in her mouth for a start.

When Taylor saw that Crystal was playing with her toys, she started reaching toward the playpen. "Mama! Mama! Ma!"

"Okay, all right," Robin said, feeling a little overwhelmed but happy. While she put Taylor down, the others laid claim to her furniture, and Sidda jumped up to go make popcorn since she knew where everything was. When Taylor was settled and playing almost peacefully with Crystal, Robin walked over and sat down in the recliner that Seth liked to read in. She snuggled into the dark leather and took a deep breath, enjoying his smell as her friends chatted around her.

When Sidda brought back the popcorn, the room was unusually quiet. If it had been chaotic, Sidda wouldn't have been surprised, but everyone was sitting like stone, staring at the TV.

"What are we, TV zombies or something?" Sidda joked, setting the bowl of popcorn down on the coffee table. The TV was playing a commercial with some little random happy melody, and a kid in a red dress was yelling excitedly about some new gift she got or something.

"Bummed," Max said, "Shocked. Surprised. Uncertain. Wishing. Hopefully. Not-hopeful?"

"Okay, okay, I get it, someone's unhappy…" She finally glanced at the TV commercial, and immediately she realized why Max looked upset, why Syl was staring at Max with both concern and amusement, and why Robin looked almost upset at Max. Gem was watching the happy family on the TV with an almost hungry look.

It was a Christmas commercial.

There were cookies now and a Santa. They hadn't celebrated Christmas last year in TC; half the transgenics hadn't understood what Christmas was, and the other half were too busy to explain it.

"I totally forgot," Max said miserably, "and I wanted to make it special this year. I was going to do a Santa and a Christmas tree in the center of TC, and maybe try to get gifts for the kids…have hot chocolate and cookies or something..."

"That sounds like fun," Syl said, trying to be supportive.

"Sounded," Max said darkly, slumping into the couch. "There's no time to get all that together now."

"Why not?" Syl frowned at her sister's pessimism; running TC was doing terrible things to Max's morale and optimistic outlook on life. "If we get enough of us together, and I'm sure there'd be a lot of people willing to help, I don't see why it can't be done. We're transgenic; we work well under pressure."

Before Max could reply, Robin suddenly looked up and at Sidda. "Christmas is barely two weeks away," she said, horrified.

"That's what we were just discussing," Gem said, cracking a half-smile.

Sidda dropped from where she had been standing to the arm of the couch. She understood what Robin had meant. Alec and Seth were supposed to be gone on the mission for two weeks minimum. They wouldn't be in Terminal City for Christmas.

Gem looked at them for a moment, probably wondering why they were down all of the sudden, and then a hand went to her mouth. "Oh no," she said softly.

"Oh yes," Sidda retorted sarcastically. She gave Gem an apologetic look; she didn't mean to be angry with her. Sidda sighed. "Did Everett have to pick the Christmas season to go on a mission? Was he intentionally torturing the rest of us for having our families?" That too was coming out unintentionally bitter. But she had spent almost a whole year since last Christmas season listening to Max talk about how important Christmas was and what a special holiday it was. And now Alec might not be there for it. For Aiden's first Christmas.

"He probably forgot," Gem said softly. From what she had seen, Everett didn't really like to think of anything besides his plan for revenge. He was afraid to heal, somehow thinking that letting himself live again would betray Mona's memory.

"Do you think maybe he'd be willing to tighten up the mission timeline?" Robin asked Gem hesitantly. She knew Gem had been going over there a lot more than any of them; she lived a lot closer, and Robin had a feeling that Gem liked the company of other single adults every now and then. Gem had never found her mate; perhaps he had been killed when Manticore was blown up. Be that as it may, Gem probably found it hard every now and then to be around couples all the time.

"I don't know," Gem said. "I don't really call Everett that much; someone on the team would probably have to talk to him about it. If everything is going well and looking good, maybe he would."

"I'll call him about it," Max said decisively. Her eyes did that usual hard-as-stone, flashing-daggers thing that they liked to do whenever she got angry. She lifted her chin as she looked around the room at her friends. "Because we're going to have a Christmas in TC, and it's going to be a good one!"

"Glad that's been decided then," Syl said, smiling. She grabbed a handful of popcorn from the bowl. "Can we watch the movie now?"

* * *

Alec sighed and flopped back on the couch-bed in the center of his temporary apartment. It was currently in disordered-bed state, and would probably remain that way until he was done his mission. There was just really no point in making it; it wasn't like he was going to have company. Plus, he enjoyed rebelling against old Manticore policy every now and then. They had always made their bed back in Manticore.

The day had gone well…up to a point.

He just didn't have his heart in this anymore, and it had taken coming here, and going on a mission, to realize it. It wasn't that he didn't want to do missions at all; he was all about doing whatever was needed for TC. But he was having a hard time convincing himself that this was necessary for TC when his target was a lonely, thin-boned woman who holed herself up in her lousy apartment for most of the day and only when out at night.

Sidda would be amused by that. She'd probably say he was being sexist or something, thinking that a woman couldn't be a threat to Terminal City. Then she'd probably demand his opinion on her own value as a soldier, and…

And why was he imagining a conversation with her when he could call her?

He flipped open the temporary cell phone he'd bought; it had thirty minutes on it. He could buy more minutes and keep the phone, but for the sake of the mission, he had to dump it. It was too bad that stealing minutes was pretty much impossible.

Sidda picked up on the second ring.

"Miss me already?" she asked, and the teasing her in voice greatly appreciated.

"How'd you know it was me?" Alec asked as he rolled over onto his stomach. In the background he could hear female voices talking to each other, and he easily picked out who the voices belonged to. "And you're partying without me?"

"It was either our amazing psychic connection or the fact that it popped up as caller unknown on my cell, take your pick," Sidda replied. She sounded a little off, as if she was using banter to cover up for something that was bothering her. "And of course I'm partying without you. Why do you think I let you go without a fight?"

"Ah, now I understand everything," Alec said, "Sneaky, Sidda."

"I try."

Catching the phone between his cheek and shoulder, Alec bent down and started taking his boots off. "How's Bean?"

"He's sleeping right now," Sidda said. The noises became quieter, and he guessed that she was moving away from the others, probably down the hallway. "But he'll be up in about an hour after I go sleep. He's good like that."

"That's my boy," Alec said, smirking to himself. "So, partying without me. I feel like I should be really hurt."

"Oh, don't pout," Sidda berated him, "It's really Syl's party at Robin and Seth's apartment, and I'm being held hostage against my will."

"I'd offer to rescue you, but I wouldn't want to infer that you couldn't do it yourself," Alec said, yanking on his stubborn right boot, "Wouldn't want a feminist rant aimed at my head."

"If you'd come home, I think I'd be willing to be rescued," Sidda said. There was the quiet click of a door being shut. "I'd be all damsel-in-distress. I might even get a skimpy dress and be all feminine."

"Really," Alec said, leaning back as the boot finally came off. "Somehow I don't think that'd work out the way I'd want it to. Though the skimpy dress sounds promising."

"Well, I don't know," Sidda said, "If I'm going to be a real princess, maybe I should wear a respectable dress."

"I'm fond of option one."

"You would be," she said with a sigh that sounded more amused than exasperated. Her voice was softer when she spoke again. "Is it completely stupid and sappy that I sort of miss you after just a few hours?"

"Only sort of?" Alec asked. He looked up at the ceiling tiles and put his free hand behind his head, grinning. Ha, she missed him.

"Oh, whoops, I meant that your absence sent me into a spiral of despair," Sidda said melodramatically. He could imagine her falling backwards onto the bed, the back of her hand pressed to her forehead in a tableau of drama. "Without you, darling, all my thoughts are dark wishes for the grave. The only things that tether me to the planet are the memory of our once radiant and transcendent love and our beautiful child." Before he could retort to that exclamation, she continued. "And, also the fact that Christmas is a couple weeks away, and it's Aiden's first has some weight on keeping me anchored to the planet."

Alec sat up. So that's what the pathetic string of lights in his target's house had been for. "Shit."

"Yeah, my sentiments exactly," Sidda said. There was a moment of silence as he thought about the extremely bad timing of the holiday and the mission. Christmas just wasn't a big deal in TC; it hadn't been celebrated in Manticore, and no one had put up any sort of fuss about it until a couple days before the event last year. Last year, Christmas had consisted of a spontaneous party in HQ with fifty boxes of stolen tinsel, a tree cut down from a snooty, rich people park in Sector Ten, and alcoholic eggnog that Sidda couldn't drink since she had been pregnant with Aiden. Fun times, but no big deal. But Max had been wanting to throw a big Christmas extravaganza thing this year; she had been talking about it since last Christmas. How the holiday had slipped past everyone, including their fearless, obsessed-with-normality leader, was a mystery.

"But, Alec, don't worry about that, okay?" Sidda said, "It's not like Aiden will remember anything, and we can throw our own Christmas after you get back." She gave a small laugh. "I don't think Jesus will mind us celebrating his birth a little later than everyone else."

"No, I don't want it to be like that," he said, standing up and walking over to the window that was frosted over. Outside, it had started snowing again. "Maybe we could move up the mission…or wait until after Christmas." The reluctance he had been feeling earlier crept into his voice, and Sidda must have picked up on it.

"Is something wrong with the target?" she asked.

Alec leaned against the wall, staring outside the window. There was some guy dressed in what must have been a five-year-old Santa suit swaggering drunkenly through the street. Probably had a job at a store or something for December…seriously, how had they forgotten Christmas? Were they really that wrapped up in themselves?

"I don't…I…" Alec sighed and rubbed his face. "You know how I am about female targets, Sidda. I don't like it. And this one…she's frail-looking, she's poor, she looks lonely, and basically, it's hard to really imagine her as threat." His voice got harsh for a second. "She's probably a member of Telic because she wants friends or something."

Sidda was quiet for a moment, and Alec desperately wanted to know what she was thinking. Before he could prompt her, she spoke again. "You can't judge on appearances; we're transgenics, that's one of the first basic rules that we innately know."

"I know…" Alec hesitated. "I just…I wish the bombing had never happened, so that I wouldn't even have to be here."

Sidda's laugh was sad. "We all wish that." He could hear her breathing on the other side of the phone, slow and peaceful. He wanted to reach out somehow and pull her to him, the way he always did when they had serious conversations. But at least she was in Terminal City with her friends and their child, safe and happy and surrounded by friends. She didn't need to be in this depressing apartment at Christmas time.

"I wish I could be there with you," she said wistfully.

"Aiden…" he started to remind her. Sidda interrupted him with a laugh.

"I know, I know. And I don't really mind. But if at any point you need me, you better call, Alec McDowell. I'll be furious with you if I found out you're trying to tough some awful situation out on your own."

"Yes ma'am," he replied teasingly. It felt good to be amused, to laugh, after such a depressing day. He really wished his target had more of a life. But then he grew serious for a moment. "Really Sidda, right now, just talking to you, joking about stuff…it's just what I need."

"Well good," Sidda said firmly. He could hear the bed rustling as she moved; probably either rolling over on to her back or stomach, depending on which position she had started out in. "If it's humor you want, do you wanna hear about how Aiden and I visited Joshua today and ended up making a total mess of his studio?"

Alec laughed and slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor. "Definitely." He loved his family.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel so don't sue me. Thanks. :-)

A/N: You reviewers are awesome! Thank you wizziewoo123, BlueEyedPisces, peculiarxemma and ItalianBreadStick for reviewing every chapter, you guys are fantastic and amazing and all good adjectives! :)

**Ex Multus Familia: Part 3**

Chapter 4

Christmas was a whole lot more stressful than Max had anticipated. It seemed like no matter what she tried to do, it always ended up creating more work for herself. She sighed and closed the door behind Logan as he came into the office; she wanted at least a few peaceful moments with him before someone decided that whatever they were doing was so urgent that they had to knock.

Logan wrapped his arms around her as soon as he saw her expression. "That bad?" he asked sympathetically, pulling back to look at her a little.

Max leaned her head into his shoulder. "I've got food taken care of," she said, lifting up her hands to tick off what she had done. "I'm pretty sure I've got a tree lined up and the cash to cover it. But I have no idea what to do about presents, and absolutely no one wants to be Santa."

Logan rested his head on her chin, took a deep breath, then sighed. "The things I do for you," he said, smiling slightly.

"What?" Max looked up at him, confused.

"I'll be your Santa." Logan grimaced. I'm not exactly great with children, but I think I can handle little genius ones. They're more like adults anyway. Plus, I'm probably the only one here who actually knows what Santa is supposed to be like."

Max laughed and kissed him. 'Really? You'll dress up as an old man?" That would make life so much simpler. She ran a couple of her fingers along the stubble on his chin. "Aw, you're going to look so adorable in a fake fluffy white beard."

"You're a sick, sick person." He said.

"Hey, at least you know when you're old I'll still think you're hot." Max winked at him; her mood was doing a complete and surprising turn-around with Logan's offer of help. The unexpectedness of it made her slightly giddy with relief. That only-left her with one more Christmas-related problem.

"Well, I'm glad you will. But as for myself…"

"Logan!" Max swatted at him and pushed away. "Go find a Santa costume," she said, wrinkling her nose at him. "Let me solve my numerous problems in peace." A grin softened her shooing words.

"Let me take care of the presents problem too," he said, pausing with his hand on the doorknob. "It'll be easier for me to go out get a bunch of…" he frowned. "Will they want toys?"

Max rolled her eyes. "They're very, very young transgenics still," she said. "They'll love toys." She crossed the room, wrapped her arms around him, and kissed him once more, more deeply this time. "You're wonderful," she said, smiling at him.

He grinned at her. "I know." He laughed as Max finally pushed him out the door.

* * *

It was surprising sometimes how easy it was to invade someone's home, Seth thought as the simple lock clicked open. It was something he had noticed as a Manticore operative; he could enter a home, case the place, go through people's things, learn everything about them and leave without them being able to tell he had even been there. They went on with their lives without even guessing that an assassin had been in their home.

He let himself into the apartment and immediately closed the door behind him. The first thing he noticed was that the place was decorated for Christmas. Last night he had talked to Robin about how close it was to the holidays. It was embarrassing to admit that he, too, had forgotten what time of year it was, but looking back on his past and how closed off from the world they were in Terminal City right now, it wasn't surprising. No one but Max and Logan really knew enough about Christmas to get excited about it. Everyone else pretty much went along without any regard to the holidays.

Seth moved through the apartment quickly, solidifying the layout in his mind. It was a nicer apartment, three bedrooms and a couple bathrooms, kitchen, dining area, living room. He stopped next to one of the bedrooms and grimaced. Kids toys. Plastic dump trucks, a scattered set of building blocks, a pair of banged-up soldier action figures, all thrown about the floor with the haphazardness of a childhood mentality that he had never been allowed to have. A boy's room, probably aged anywhere from five to ten. Seth moved back out of the room and glanced into the next one.

A girl's room, a teenager judging from the posters, decorated laptop, and smell of perfume that lingered in the room. Seth sighed and leaned against the doorjamb. Everett had included in his information that this target, Kevin Rikers, had two children, and Seth had still agreed to go through it. Being here and seeing these kids' rooms made it harder though. Yes, he was taking out a threat to the transgenic nation, but he was also taking a father away from his children. There was the possibility that Rikers was an abusive father, but Seth doubted it. Pictures were set out around the teenager's room of her, many of them with a light brown-haired girl with slightly bucked teeth and pretty brown eyes and a man with the same hair color although his was shot with streaks of grey. Father and daughter.

Seth couldn't keep his thoughts from leaping to Taylor. He could imagine pictures just like this in her room someday. A blond, curly-haired little girl with bright blue eyes hanging on his shoulder, kissing his cheek, hugging him, laughing. She was…everything to him. Her and her mother, his girls, they were his whole world. He couldn't imagine life without them, and he definitely couldn't imagine Taylor growing up without him or Robin in her life.

He left the teenager's room, face set in a frown. That was exactly why he had to go through with this. Everett had said that Rikers had been on the forefront of many plans to exterminate everyone in Terminal City. Some of those plans had been horrific enough to compare them to a wholescale genocide of the transgenic population. Everett had found out that he was the one who seconded the motion to bomb Terminal City, leading to the destruction of the Cultural Center and almost causing Robin's death. Seth clenched his first and walked on toward Rikers' bedroom.

As long as Rikers was alive, he was going to be a danger to transgenics' almost on par with White and the Familiars. He was also a coward since he had supported bombing instead of all-out warfare. Of course you can kill people when you can't see their faces, can't see how human they are when you think they're as bad as cockroaches. A bombing was a coward's attack, one that was occasionally necessary in Manticore, but only used because the higher-ups approved of it and it was a useful, time-tested tactic in assassinations. All transgenics preferred to fight face-on, where both opponents could see each other and know who they were fighting.

Anyone who wanted to kill an entire species of people without looking at them face-on was a coward and needed to be taken out before his fear led him to another massacre. Seth couldn't afford the price leaving him alive might be.

* * *

"Get it off me!" Sidda exclaimed, tugging and pulling at the silver, red and green tinsel that was clinging to her. Krit laughed and dumped another leftover box of tinsel from last year on top of her head.

"You're like a little living Christmas tree," he said as she struggled to free herself.

She shot him a ferocious glare. "Krit, you suck."

The two of them, along with Robin, Dalton and Anica, had made the mistake of stopping and having a conversation in headquarters. Robin and Krit had been debating something that was on the news on one of the TVs when Dalton and Anica came by and jumped in on the argument. Sidda had wandered through a few minutes later and had been dragged into the conversation. The unfortunate occurrence of talking about the gross engorgement of TV Santas just at the moment when Max had come storming past them had gotten all five of them enlisted on a spontaneous holiday decorating crew.

Hence Sidda being covered in tinsel by an unenthusiastic Krit looking for a way to make the chore interesting.

Robin looked over from the window ledge she had been draping with tinsel, and laughed at Sidda. "That's the best idea for this tinsel that I've seen yet," she said. Krit grinned at having the decorator's approval.

"See? Robin likes it. So you should keep it on."

"Oh, yeah, 'cause Robin approves I'll just wear it until Christmas. Sounds like a great plan," Sidda said sarcastically. She grimaced as she ran her hands through her hair, trying to rake some of the tinsel out. She officially hated the stuff.

"No, actually, I don't think we should use tinsel at all," Robin said with a sigh. "I think it's tacky and gets everywhere and if we put it up now most of it will have fallen off wherever we put it by Christmas." She cast a dark glance at the window ledge she'd been putting tinsel on. She could just see someone at HQ getting the bright idea to open the window…

"Then why are we using it?" Dalton asked. He was holding a box for Anica so that she could decorate; but she'd ended up spending most of the last twenty minutes braiding it into her hair. Her hair looked very pretty and shiny now, but her corner of the room remained largely tinsel-free.

"Because this was most of what Max had, and she desperately wants TC to be in the holiday spirit right now," Sidda said. She dumped the load of tinsel she'd gotten out of her hair onto Krit's own head.

"Hey!" Krit protested, surprised to find his own entertainment turned on him. Sidda smirked as the shiny stuff got caught in his jacket and hair. Served him right.

"You know, maybe we should just put ourselves in charge of the decorations-stealing committee if we're going to be forced to decorate anyway," Robin said. "At least then we can tell them what sort of stuff to get."

"That might not be a bad idea," Krit said, dropping the box with its remains of tinsel so that he could pull off the clingy stuff off of himself. "But what sort of stuff would we get for decorations anyway?"

Robin left her pile of tinsel alone and came over to help both Sidda and Krit remove their tinsel. "Well…" she said slowly, obviously thinking out loud. "Christmas trees for starters. Ornaments, of course. But lights most especially. You can make anywhere look beautiful with classy, traditional golden-colored lights."

"Lights." Krit nodded. "You know, I might even know a place where we can get some of those. They might need some repairing, but I could do that."

Sidda finished brushing off the last of the tinsel Krit had dumped on her and looked up. "Well, what are we waiting for then?" she asked "Let's go get some lights."

* * *

It was taking all of Alec's control and concern for the safety of his family to stay put and be patient. He wanted to get this target eliminated as quickly as possible, and get home. But she was relatively unimportant compared to some of the other targets, and so Everett wanted Alec to wait.

Some of the most important Telic leaders were proving to be a little more difficult to track and predict, so the people on those missions weren't ready yet. And there was no doubt that the higher-up targets would scatter if they got word that several lesser Telic members had been killed.

Alec crosses his arms and leaned his head back against the wall. He possibly had the most boring target in the world, and he allowed himself to rant at her about that because one, he didn't have anything else to do, and two, it would make the final part of his mission easier if he was annoyed at her.

He frowned and stuck his hand in his left pocket as his mission phone vibrated. Everett had given these to everyone before they had split up. Only Everett knew the numbers to them, and he would only call them in an emergency. They had limited minutes , and when those were used up, they were to be thrown away.

"What's up?" he asked, flipping his phone open.

"Has your target done anything unusual in the last few hours?" Everett asked.

Alec squinted up at the balcony that marked his target's apartment. "Well, Bekers is making dinner tonight instead of heating it up in the microwave. Does that count?" he asked.

"It just might," Everett said. Alec could hear sounds changing and passing by Everett; it sounded like Everett was moving.

"Is your target on the move?" Alec asked standing up straighter.

"Yes," Everett replied. "And he is heading towards your sector. Your target is the only higher-up Telic member in that sector, which is why I called. It may be a false alarm; Jones may be meeting someone outside Telic. But just be prepared."

"Got it," Alec said. He closed the phone. Well, that was an interesting turn of events. He moved away from the wall. Maybe it was time to get a closer look at what his target was up to before Everett got there.

He took the stairs two at a time and then paused outside the door next to Bekers' apartment. After several days of watching, he'd quickly gotten the pattern of this inhabitant. They worked a night shift somewhere and slept during the day. The old man who lived here was already gone, so Alec would be fine in there until about 4 a.m.

The lock was easy to pick, like always. These poor people really had no idea how vulnerable they were. Alec softly closed the door behind him and then moved over to the wall adjoining Bekers' apartment. Oh, the joys of transgenic hearing.

After about a half hour of listening to Wendel whisper to herself about cooking temperatures and tell her dog Horatio to get away from the stove about half-a-dozen times, Alec was rewarded by the sounded of heavy boots coming down the hallway. Only a few people lived on this floor of the mostly abandoned apartment building, and Alec knew for certain that anyone wearing boots like that wouldn't be walking down this hall at the moment. They were all predictable people, and as far as he could tell, no one here could really afford boots anyways, so he was guessing it was Jones.

Sure enough, the person knocked on Wendel's door, and a moment later Alec heard Wendel welcome someone with a distinctively male voice into the room.

"Hello, sir," she said, probably ducking her head in that nervous habit of hers, "I'm glad you came."

"I'm glad you called," Jones replied, "I've missed you from the meetings lately."

"I know, but after Randy's death last week, I just couldn't bring myself to come," Wendel said, "I've never done well with losing people."

While Alec pondered the irony of that statement and wondered when Everett was going to show up, he heard the pair move further into the apartment.

"I know Randy was a close friend of yours," Jones said, "I'm sorry, Tina."

Alec lifted his eyebrows at the sob that came from the other side of the wall. "It was so sudden," Wendel exclaimed, "He was doing fine, then that heart attack. I didn't even know he had heart problems." Hate suddenly overpowered her voice. "It was the trannies. I know those bastards did it, those things hate us, Jones, they hate all of us, and if they're low enough to kill people like Randy…" She trailed off into heartfelt sobs while Jones shushed her.

"I know, Tina, I know," Jones said soothingly, "I'm having our best people look into it, but I wouldn't be surprised if the mutants were behind it. It's their way, killing. You couldn't expect anything else from them, and we both know that."

"But how could anyone knowingly create something so heartless?" Wendel demanded.

"Some people just don't know when to stop," Jones replied, "They wanted to push the limits, and we have to deal with the consequences."

"I just wish they were gone," Wendel said, "I can't stand them."

Alec clenched his fists and tried not to lose control. Things? Oh, yeah, Aiden, his perfect boy, was just a thing, not even worth the designation of human. Inherent killers? Mhmm, Seth and Robin, those two were completely bloodthirsty, always trying to save people without even thinking about themselves. Heartless? Yes, of course that's what Sidda was when she kissed him gently and whispered that she loved him before they went to sleep. Yeah, they were definitely monsters, all of them. Alec pulled his gun out of its holster and started checking it, making sure it was in perfect working order. All his previous misgivings were taking a backseat to the fury that was taking over him.

Who the hell did they think they were? They didn't know anything about transgenics. The only one they had ever talked to like a normal person was Everett, and he had been pretending to be another transgenic-hater, just like them. If he could just shove their faces into his life, to see it from his point-of-view…but he wouldn't want to taint his life like that. He didn't want them anywhere near his family or his friends. How had Everett lasted as long as he did in Telic?

At the same time Alec was doing a good job of controlling his anger at this incredibly bogus conversation, the door to the apartment he had sitting in opened to let Everett in. With a dark ski jacket, navy toboggan and jeans, Everett could have easily passed for someone just walking in off the street. Since he hadn't been given any prior warning, Alec was dressed in a similar way; there really wasn't need for a sneaksuit when you weren't doing any real sneaking. Alec supposed that guessing which room he had been in hadn't been hard for Everett, who knew every detail of everyone's missions, and knew Alec well-enough to know which possible location he would have picked. Alec was used to being point on missions, but Everett was handling the responsibility as if he had always been a team leader. Alec was content to let Everett run things; the other transgenic needed this more than he did.

Everett walked over and crouched down next to Alec. A quick series of hand motions between them got a rough plan laid out. They were going to take out both Wendel and Jones here, as soon as both of the Telic members were completely off guard. Breaking in during dinner was their best option since no one ever expected assassins to come during dinner; that time in Paris with the Malaysian ambassador had taught them that. Everett would take out Jones while Alec did the same thing to Wendel.

They sat there for a few minutes, listening as Jones murmured comforting words to Wendel as the two of them set food out on the dinner table. Perhaps Alec was biased, but to his ears, Jones sounded impatient, as if he was going through the motions of supporting Wendel so that he could get something else. Alec looked over at Everett and noticed that Everett was putting his weaponry together. Alec put a hand on Everett's arm, and when Everett looked up. Alec shook his head 'no.' Alec nodded to the wall, indicating they should wait and listen.

Everett frowned, but there was no reason for them to jump in immediately. Dinner would take a little time; the two hadn't even started eating yet. And it might be worth their while to see if Jones had any interesting information before Everett killed him.

"Tina, we need you back." Well, Jones wasn't the type to beat around the bush then.

"And Ran—what?"

"We've got some major plans being laid with the help of a group that hates the transgenics almost as much as we do." Now Jones' voice was smooth, persuasive. He was using Wendel's pain to pull her in. "This can be your chance to get back at them, Tina. You can be in on the planning process. You know you're good at this kind of thing."

Alec straightened up. Another offensive? How much time did they have?

"Will it work?" Wendel's voice was business-like as well now, devoid of any emotion. She was trying to match up to her boss. How pathetic. Alec would have kicked the man out on his ass if he wanted to talk business a week after a close friend had died.

"We're never sure," Jones said. "But every bit we can do counts."

The room was silent for a moment, then Wendel moved and sat down in a chair at her kitchen table. "I don't know, Jones," she said. "I know you can't tell me any more details until I fully commit. But I'm going to have to think about this one. You understand? I don't want to go into it without being utterly focused."

"Of course I understand," Jones said, but the impatience was back in his tone. How was Wendel not picking up on it? Either she was choosing to ignore it, or Manticore training really did make a difference in stuff like this.

Apparently Everett's patience was also gone though. All they'd learned was that there was another offensive in the works; that gave both Everett and Alec more than enough reason to kill the Telic leaders now, especially when it was obvious they wouldn't be hearing anymore valuable information.

Well, knowing that this Wendel woman could be vital to that future operation's success certainly helped Alec. He wouldn't have any qualms about killing her now.

They moved around to the back of the apartment where the balcony was; it was only a short hop over to Wendel's balcony, and it would provide the best vantage for killing them. Alec had memorized the apartment carefully several times; Wendel liked to place her dining chairs with their backs to the window. She probably had thought she was safer to face her door.

She always left her balcony door open as well; a second indication that she assumed no one would be entering her apartment that way.

That was another thing Alec had learned at Manticore. Never make assumptions.

The two Telic leaders had only just put their first forkful of food to their mouths when the sliding door to Wendel's balcony was pushed open, and Alec set two bullets into her head and one into her heart. He could hear Everett firing beside him, and assumed Everett had done his job as well.

Alec strode forward to check Wendel's body and make sure she was dead. You could never be too careful. Only a second too late though, he heard a click from his left. He spun around, raising his gun and crouching at the same time.

"Everett, damnit!" he yelled, firing his weapon. His bullet caught Jones in the shoulder; Jones had moved, and Alec had missed his target by inches. Apparently Jones had been aiming for a similar area because Alec gasped as he felt a bullet go through the right side of his chest. Probably inches away from his heart as well.

"Don't kill him!" Everett yelled out sharply. Everett blurred across the room and kicked the gun out of Jones' hands. Alec could now see that Jones had been wounded in all his limbs, and now his shoulder. But no where that would kill him.

Alec took a moment to check that his target was dead so that there would be no more surprise attacks, and then he slumped against the wall, pressing his jacket to his chest in order to try and stop the bleeding. Hopefully the bullet hadn't gone through anything vital.

"Are you crazy?" Alec asked, his voice tight from pain. He hissed at how much it hurt to use his chest muscles.

"I'll kill him, don't worry," Everett said, looking down at Jones coldly. "But first I want to talk to him, explain things a little. I want him to know what's going on before he dies." Alec leaned forward and rested his head on his knees. Everett really had lost it.

"Can't you…kill him…and…talk to his…dead body…later?" Alec panted out. He was losing blood fast. He shrugged out of his jacket, then pulled his t-shirt off. He was going to need to use the material for a bandage if he wanted to survive this quick-bleeding wound. Even a transgenic wouldn't live if they lost blood too quickly. And he had to live. For Sidda and Aiden, he had to.

Everett seemed not to care about the gaping hole in Alec's chest as he matched stares with the Telic leader. The man looked at him and smiled, a laugh hanging on the corner of his mouth.

"Mark Hammerman," he snorted, "I knew you. I knew you were wrong for our organization." He grinned as if this was all a terribly funny joke.

"I'm going to kill you," Everett said, "My designation is 332572519390, X series, Classification 5. My mate's name was Mona. You murdered her."

"What?" Jones coughed as he pulled himself up against the wall. "What do you want me to do? Cry about it? Feel some remorse?"

"No," Everett said coldly, "I want you to know she had a name."

"That didn't make her a person," Jones replied. He chuckled darkly and swiped a bloody-hand over his mouth. "All of you are animals, all of you, and you'll realize that when you're hunted like the creatures you are."

Alec pressed his compressed t-shirt against his chest, trying to stop himself from bleeding out by applying pressure. He shot Jones a glare and then glanced up at Everett, wondering how much longer he was going to let the guy run his mouth off. Everett stood there with the gun pointed at Jones, his face emotionless. "Everett, I don't want…to rush you or anything…"

Jones looked over at Alec and then looked up at Everett, shaking his heads. "Animals."

Everett blurred forward and pressed the gun against Jones' forehead. "Mona wasn't an animal. I am."

Jones started to say something, but Everett unloaded five shots into his head, one after the other in rapid succession. The leader of Telic slumped to the side, his mouth still open. Everett stood over him, the gun pointed at him as blood dripped down Jones' forehead and started to stain the carpet.

Alec looked at the door to the apartment. Okay, one of the people on this hall had to have heard some of that, and they were going to be here any moment. He got to his feet, his eyes widening at the searing pain in his shoulder. He had never truly appreciated gunshot wounds, he realized, now that he taken one to the chest. This was different than the limb shots he was used to. Grimacing, he leaned against the wall.

"Let's go," he barked out, "Everett!" Even talking hurt. Why hadn't he moved just a split second faster? Then it would've been his shoulder. Shoulder would've been much better.

Everett moved a moment later and hurried toward Alec. He stared at the bloody t-shirt pressed to Alec's chest. "God, Alec, you're injured," he said, slipping underneath the other transgenic's good arm. Alec held back an agonized groan as his chest stretched, and he shot Everett a disbelieving stare.

"No shit," he said. They started walking toward the balcony door, Alec trying not to sag too much against Everett. Obviously the other transgenic was less mentally stable than he had thought, or he had just been blocking everything else out in his need for revenge. A man like that was dangerous to be with on a mission, though Alec guessed that since Jones was dead now, Everett wouldn't have too much more to obsess over.

"When did it happen?" Everett asked as they went out onto the balcony.

"Damn it, Everett, did you…black out on me…in there?" Alec let out a frustrated, pained noise as he pulled himself up onto the balcony wall. This was going to be hell. They needed to cross all of the balconies as quickly as possible until they got to the empty apartment's balcony on the end. Then it would be a quick climb down the fire escape and running until they were far enough away to be safe. Normally this would've been as easy as crossing the street for him, but now the task loomed in front of him. He turned back toward Everett. "Shit…come on."

* * *

Seth was starting to hate this job. That was a lie. He had hated this job from the beginning, but now it was just depressing. The Rikers seemed like a good family, but Everett was right, Riker himself was dangerous. He was a part of the Sector Police, and he happened to be in charge of the Sector Police armory in this sector. The sector police usually supplemented their own armory with whatever they had picked off of criminals they had arrested, so the armory was always growing. With ease, Riker could arm the entire Telic group and have them march on Terminal City with more weaponry than the transgenics had.

Riker had to be eliminated, Seth agreed with that, but he couldn't help but feel bad about his family. His wife and kids were good people besides their transgenic-hating tendencies, and the girl, Ann, would even occasionally argue with her dad about whether or not transgenics were people. She still didn't like transgenics, but at least she was thinking about it… They didn't deserve to have their father taken away from them, but their father shouldn't have gotten involved with Telic.

Riker's date of expiration was tomorrow. He was supposed to be staying behind to watch some sort of game on TV while his family went to a Christmas party a few apartment buildings away. Right now, he was coming home from work, and like usual, Seth had a sniper gun ready to train on his head the moment he was in sight. Riker liked to walk home, and Seth always thought that killing him this way would be easier than going into his house and killing him if there was an emergency, a possibility that Seth always anticipated with so many operatives on the field and him being the main medic. Seth chose the option of sniper gun because if Riker ever came home with another member of Telic, Seth was supposed to take them both out, and the sniper gun let him accomplish that task fastest.

A few minutes later than usual, Riker walked around the side of the building, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his coat and his head bent forward. Seth lifted the gun and placed the butt of it against his shoulder but before he could take aim, the cellphone in his pocket began to buzz.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel so don't sue me. Thanks. :-)

A/N: Thank you so much to ItalianBreadStick, BlueEyedPisces, wizziewoo123, loz, and Psycho17 for reviewing the last chapter! You guys are all AMAZING! ^_^

**Ex Multus Familia: Part 3**

Chapter 1

"Shit." Alec leaned his head back against the wall and panted. "Everett, this place is gonna have to do." They were outside an apartment building across the street from where Wendel lived. Alec had picked out an empty apartment in the building a few days ago in case he decided to resort to sniping for some reason or another. It was always better to be safe than sorry, and now he definitely wasn't sorry he had chosen it.

"This isn't very far away," Everett said, glancing across the street with a worried frown. There were no police yet, but they'd heard a scream come from the apartment just after they had made it onto the fire escape. Someone had come to investigate the shots they'd heard.

"I know, but I think if we keep going I'm going to lose way too much blood," Alec said. "I need to sit tight and try to stem the flow, okay?"

Everett looked at Alec, evaluating him with Manticore-trained eyes. "You're right. Alec, I'm sorry—"

"Apologize later, okay?" Alec grunted as he moved away from the wall. "For now, just help get me up to the fifth floor."

It hadn't mattered a few hours ago, but Alec was very happy now that he'd chosen an apartment building with an elevator in it. As soon as they were in the empty apartment, Alec sat down in the main room, near the windows so he could hear what was going on across the way.

Everett moved to help tighten his bandage, but Alec shoved him away. "Call Seth first and let him know we need medical help, okay?" he said. "I can take care of the bandage while you're doing that, but the sooner Seth gets here, the better."

They'd all had field medic training, but Alec couldn't exactly remove the bullet from himself very well, and he didn't really trust Everett at the moment. And anyways, when it came to dangerous wounds and delicate operations, Seth definitely had more experience than either of them.

Alec listened as Everett moved to the next room to talk to Seth. No reason to, really, since both of them knew that Alec could listen in if he wanted to. Alec supposed that Everett was at least giving him a choice. Alec decided to concentrate more on the wound at the moment.

"Seth's perfectly placed to finish off his target right now, so he's going to do that and then get over here," Everett said, returning to the room. He crouched down in front of Alec and took the makeshift bandage from Alec's hands and started to reapply it himself. "As soon as he's here, I'm going to go and meet up with the other teams who weren't ready to take out their targets yet. Seth will be able to stay here with you, if that's all right."

"Sounds good to me," Alec said, stiffening his body against the pain as Everett worked. At the moment, he'd much rather have his best friend with him than only the half-sane Everett. Everett was a good buddy but seemingly not entirely reliable when he was too focused on something.

When Everett was done bandaging him, Alec sighed and relaxed his tensed up muscles a little. Better that he not stress himself right now. He closed his eyes as Everett moved away, and fell into a semi-conscious state as he focused inward, withdrawing into himself so that he was almost in a hibernation state. This would give his body more time to heal.

It seemed like only a few minutes later that he was aware of someone prodding at his wound, making it highly uncomfortable and impossible for him to ignore the pain.

"Hey, hey, that hurts," Alec grouched. He glared up at Seth, whose face was highlighted by the glow of several flashlights. Oh, Alec had forgotten that they might need electricity.

"Darn it, I was hoping you'd just stay out while I worked," Seth said.

"Only you would say darn instead of damn," Alec muttered. He chuckled a bit, then pressed a hand to his forehead. Was he getting loopy?

"Blood loss is affecting you," Seth said, noticing the confused look on Alec's face. "I've taken the bullet out, but now I'm going to have to stop the bleeding. And unfortunately, since I have limited tools and your blood is flowing more quickly again, we're going to have to cauterize the wound."

"We're going to have to…whoa, what?" Alec tried to sit up, but Seth pushed him back down with ease. "You're going to have to burn me? Are you a barbarian?"

"No, just practical, and just saving your life," Seth said calmly. "Your mate being best friends with mine doesn't exactly allow for many other options." He gave Alec a teasing grin, but Alec wasn't exactly in the mood to joke around for once. He'd been shot quite a few times in his life, but never before had being shot also involved having the wound cauterized. He just hadn't needed medical attention that desperately or been that far away from a good medical facility.

"So…I'm guessing I have to stay awake for this?" He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer. Seth moved over to the fireplace, where Alec could now see a knife was heating up. Okay, he really didn't want to know the answer.

"Unfortunately, yes. I don't have any anesthetic with me, and I'd be hesitant to give it to you anyway without the right monitoring devices." Seth turned around and looked at him, and his voice when he spoke was full of regret and had a touch of anxiety. "I really wish we could just get you back to TC, but traveling that far would be dangerous for you, especially after you and Everett just killed the leader of Telic."

"I know." Alec said. He was quiet for a moment. "Okay, let's just get it over with, but…"

"Yes?" Seth said. He had been reaching for the knife, but he paused.

"Call Sidda when it's done with, okay?" She'll want to know what's happened, where I am, all that stuff, you know?"

"Got it," Seth said. He lifted the knife. "Ready?"

Alec looked away from the glowing blade, gritted his teeth, then nodded.

Searing heat hit his shoulder like the bullet going through it again, and it took all his willpower not to cry out. If he could just pass out, just for a moment… The stench of burning flesh, his burning flesh, only made that desire stronger. He felt like the knife was lighting his nerve endings and the pain was spreading from there. He could feel it everywhere, powering up his arms, across his chest, trying to claw its way up his throat and out of his mouth. Just when he felt like he was going to scream, the pain dulled a little.

"Sorry," Seth said, sounding almost like it had hurt him too, "But it's over now."

"Good," Alec said, putting his head put down on someone's bundled up jacket. He glanced at Seth out of slitted eyes he could hardly keep open. His consciousness wanted to sleep now, get away from this pain somehow, any way he could. "You'll call her?"

"Yeah," Seth said, squeezing his right shoulder for a moment, "I'll tell Sidda. You're going to be fine."

"Make sure you tell her that," Alec mumbled before unconsciousness grabbed him.

* * *

Sidda blurred down the street through the shadows of the apartment buildings, her heart pounding more from fear than physical exertion. This was the street behind the apartments that faced that damn Telic woman's apartment, and this was how she was going to get into the apartment building where Alec and Seth were. She sped through a puddle, splashing muddy water across her jeans.

She hadn't said much when Seth had called. What could she say? There was nothing she could do at home, which was exactly why she was on the move right now. Seth hadn't sounded too worried, but he hadn't sugarcoated it either. It was a chest wound, it was pretty serious, and although he expected Alec would make it, they were going to have to stay where they were for now to avoid suspicion, and Alec had lost a lot of blood. That had sealed Sidda's already made-up mind.

After she had gotten off the phone, Sidda had taken Aiden and carried him up the stairs to Robin's apartment. As much as she wanted to take her baby with her, she knew he wouldn't be safe, and she couldn't bear it if Aiden was hurt. The briefest of explanations to a very confused and quickly concerned Robin were all Sidda could spare before she left her best friend with her baby boy and promises that she or Seth would call as soon as they could. Robin had understood why Sidda was going; she would have done the same thing in her shoes, and both women knew it.

She had spared a little more precious time for a short drive over to the infirmary where she burst into the place like a woman on fire, startling Sibil who had obviously just settled down at the desk with a cup of coffee. She had a soft spot for the medic who had become a large part of her life last year, and a second hurried but forcibly calm explanation had gotten her a backpack full of as much medical supplies as Sibil thought Seth would need and an offer to come along. Sidda had thanked her, but there were already too many people at risk on this mission, and she was pretty sure that Seth had the situation under control.

Sidda counted off the buildings until she came to the back of the right one. It was a rundown apartment building identical to every other one on this street. Without changing her pace, she vault fifteen feet into the air and landed silently on top of the fire escape. She could hear sirens on the other side of the building and raised voices, most likely in response to the two assassinations that had just gone on over there. She hoped no one would get the bright idea to go searching the nearby apartment buildings. They should have gotten further away, and Alec knew that…it didn't make her feel any better that this was as far as they had managed to get.

Staying in the shadows, she vaulted up the rusted, breaking fire escape, hoping it wouldn't give way under her as long as she didn't rest on it very long. It took her weight well and she made it to the fifth floor without any disasters. A jerk on the nailed shut window in the hall of the fifth floor gave her an entry into the empty hallway.

When she was in, she affected a peeved, sleepy expression, as if she had just got in for the night from a job and the noise across the street was bothering her. It was a precaution that probably wasn't necessary; most of the building would already be across the street, gawking and hoping to see dead bodies because humans had a morbid fascination with corpses, and they flocked to death like it was a spectator sport.

Apartment 519 was easy to find, and she knocked gently, her heart thundering. The door opened a moment later, and Seth pulled her inside before shutting the door again. Seeing Seth made the situation even more real, but Seth's presence was also reassuring. The medic had that soothing quality about him. Too bad it wasn't working as well as usual.

"How is he?" she asked, afraid of the answer, but she had to know. She moved through the apartment, following the scent of Alec and his blood. The smell was so strong…

"It was close, Sidda," Seth said, sounding tired. "I think he'll make it, but…it was close, and I don't have everything I would in TC."

Sidda pulled the bag off her shoulders and handed it to him. "Sibil sent this," she managed to say before she caught sight of her mate. He was lying beside the fire, covered with a thin blanket, his eyes closed and shadowed. God, he was so pale, he looked… Sidda was beside him in a moment, taking his hand in hers like she could tether him to life, physically grab him back from the edge. She had seen hundreds of injured people, but seeing Alec hurt like this tore at her like dull knives.

Sidda was barely aware of Seth moving to sit beside her. She heard him rustling in the bag Sibil had sent with her, but she didn't pay him much attention. Instead, she was as close as she could get to Alec. She kept one of his hands in hers, and lay on her side beside him, her lower body pressed against his.

"Sidda…"

Seth was holding some sort of tubing in his hand, and she could glimpse the shine of a sharp needle through his fingers.

"Erm…yes…" she said, feeling slightly dizzy. Needles weren't exactly her favorite things ever.

"Alec's lost a lot of blood. It really would be best for him if one of us donated some of ours." Seth shrugged. "I can do it if you want, but I thought you might like to have the option."

Sidda didn't hesitate. "No, definitely let me do it." She let go of Alec's hand and sat up straighter before rolling her sleeves up. Then she took a deep breath. She'd never been a fan of needles, nor of giving blood. But she was determined to help Alec in whatever way possible. "Tell me what I need to do," she said.

At least this way Seth would be able to fully focus and be aware. Sidda didn't want a man who'd just given a lot of blood to be looking after Alec. Sidda could be useful as Alec's donor and mate, and Seth could be useful as his best friend and doctor. It was all going to work out just right, and it would all be fine.

"Are you sure?" Seth sounded concerned.

Sidda nodded. "Let's just do it," she said, looking away and at Alec. Alec's blonde hair was starting to look a little shaggy…Sidda smiled and ran her fingers lightly through his hair. She loved him so much, all she needed to do was remember that she was doing this for him, and she knew that she could be strong enough.

Her eyes closed as Seth stuck the needle into Sidda's arm. Sidda winced, but she refused to do anything other than exactly what Seth had told her to do. So she curled her fingers, willing the blood to pump through, and then lay down next to Alec.

"Just take it out when it's done," Sidda mumbled, closing her eyes so she could concentrate on Alec's warm scent. Hopefully it wouldn't be long before her mate was awake and talking and joking. Then Sidda would know that he was okay.

* * *

Alec didn't dream much, so he wasn't entirely certain he was dreaming now. He was still in the apartment across the street, and the remains of Seth's fire were in the fireplace. That all made sense. Seth was there, a distinct lump asleep on the floor. Well, that made sense too. But then there was the light, familiarly-shaped body pressed against him. That couldn't be real. There was no way Sidda was there.

And even if she was there for some reason, there was no explanation for why her usual scent was mixed with the smell of her blood.

Protective instincts kicking in, Alec decided to sit up. If it hurt...whoa; he clutched at his chest as a wave of pain shot through him. Okay, so that was definitely real. Alec hesitated. Although he really wanted Sidda to be there when he turned to look, he also didn't want her to be there, especially if she was bleeding. It would be awesome to be with her again, but it would also mean that she had put herself into danger by coming there.

But she was there, his beautiful mate, her short blonde hair soft and curling with the humidity, her body still curled in such a way that he knew she'd been lying next to him. Alec shook his head, a grin on his face despite the pain coming from his wound. Of course she was there, his stubborn little warrior woman. Alec had been the one to insist that Seth call Sidda, and he should've known that she would come.

"You're awake."

Alec glanced over at Seth, who hadn't moved, but whose eyes were open. "Shh. She's not."

"She gave a lot of blood to you today." Seth moved slowly to a sitting position. Alec's best friend looked tired, and there was definitely some scruff growing on his jaw. The fire made his eyes dark circles. Alec felt a bit of guilt over the trouble his and Everett's operation must have caused Seth, but then again, Everett should be feeling most of the guilt for that. If he was sane yet.

Still, Alec's concern for Seth was momentarily overridden by what Seth had just said. "Wait…she gave blood to me?" Alec chuckled and shook his head. "No, Sidda doesn't do needles."

"She does for you," Seth replied, raising one eyebrow at Alec's assumption. "She was very firm, no hesitation. I offered to give some as well halfway into it, but she said she had it covered and told me to hush so she could go to sleep." Seth shrugged. "She was fine, so I let her."

Alec stared down at his mate. Every now and then, he had to wonder how he'd been so incredibly damn lucky to end up with a woman like her. The things she did for him…

"So she's okay though?" Alec asked, looking up.

"Of course I'm okay." Sidda rolled onto her back and gazed up at Alec sleepily before raising one hand to touch his cheek. "Are you okay?" She gave him one of her trademark smirks. "You weren't looking so hot a few hours ago."

"Yeah, I'm good," he said, turning to kiss her hand. However, sitting up wasn't doing it for him anymore. Groaning, he laid back down. Seth must have given him some kind of numbing medicine because the pain in his chest wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.

"Sure, Macho Man, you're good," Sidda said. She didn't get up and worry over him; instead she curled herself into his side again as if she was reassured by the physical touch. "You've went and got a piercing big enough for a bull ring, but you're still good."

"Technically not a piercing since the bullet didn't go all the way through," Seth declared, always the rational one. Alec would've laughed at Seth's logical comment, but he knew that would only make the pain worse. Instead he just grinned and played with Sidda's hair. It was a testament to her own sleepiness that she only moved closer to him, if that was possible.

"We can't stay here," he said after a few moments. The noise from across the street was softer than it had been a few hours ago, but it was still drifting in through the window, and Alec could hear people talking about the search that was going to happen. It was inevitable, and he had known that when he and Everett had stopped here, but there hadn't been another choice.

"I know," Seth said with a grimace, "They're going to look in this building."

"Squatters have no rights," Alec said, "And this is a squatters building, so they'll just turn everyone out into the street." He made a face as a thought struck him like he had run up against a brick wall. "Oh, shit."

"What?" Sidda asked, sitting up abruptly and peering down at him with suddenly alert eyes.

"There's going to be blood in the apartment," Alec growled. He slammed his left fist down on the ground out of frustration, ignoring how much it hurt. "And it's going to be transgenic blood."

"Everett didn't scour the room?" Sidda asked as she turned to stare at Seth, horrified. Now there was no way that transgenics weren't going to be blamed for this. "Why didn't he rip up the carpet or torch the place?"

"He was probably high off of killing Jones," Alec replied, wishing that he had been smart enough to do it himself.

Beside him, Sidda drew her legs up to her and rested her head on her knees as the unvoiced thoughts weighed down the room. He wanted to comfort her, but he didn't know how. Killing those people could give the government reason to take out the transgenic population since they were dangerous and bloodthirsty. The plan had always been to not leave a trace of themselves, nothing that could be traced back to Terminal City. Even if they didn't find a murder weapon, the presence of transgenic blood in the room was enough to incriminate the entire race. If the Familiars got wind of this, and there was no doubt they would, this could potentially be the end of Terminal City.

"So much for not bringing this home," Seth said. The medic stood up and walked over to the window, careful to stay in the shadows. He peered out the window and then looked back at Alec. "How exactly did you get shot, Alec?"

"Accident," Alec said, not really wanting to explain Everett's sudden psychosis to Seth or Sidda. Even though he wasn't too pleased with Everett right now, he didn't want the two of them deciding to take the other X5's punishment into their hands. Seth and Sidda exchanged a look that told him they didn't necessarily believe him, but he ignored them. "Look, we're going to need to get back to Terminal City, and when I say we, I mean everyone on this mission. Then we should probably drag up some good alibis." He pushed himself up on his elbows, his teeth gritted against the pain.

"Alec, you're not really ready—"

"No shit, Seth," Alec snapped and then immediately regretted it. Seth had done a lot for him tonight and didn't deserve to be treated like that. "Sorry, man. I'm just…" He trailed off, not really knowing what he was right now.

"It's okay," Seth said, holding up a hand, "But I'm reserving the right to bite your head off next time I'm injured."

Alec had to smirk. Seth understood him.

Sidda, who had been quiet up until now, raised her head from her knees, an intense, eyebrows-together look on her face. "I think we can fix this."

Alec held his hand to his aching chest and looked over at her, curious. Sidda could surprise him sometimes when it came to dealing with situations where there seemed to be no escape and no solution. It had been her specialty back in Manticore; get into an impossible situation and somehow get back out of it intact. Still, this was a much larger mess than he had seen her tackle before, and he doubted that there was going to be any way out. "What're you thinking?"

She looked from him to Seth. "It'll probably take everyone who's in the field right now and maybe then some, and you're going to have to strategize it, Seth, but I'm going to spout off everything we need to do and handle, okay?"

"All right," Seth said, turning towards her with his arms crossed, preparing to process the information she was about to throw at him.

"Okay, we need to start with the apartment…"

* * *

Alec was pissed at Everett, at this situation, at himself. He refused to be pissed at Seth and Sidda. It wasn't their fault at all that Alec had gotten shot, or that Alec and Everett had forgotten to clean Alec's blood up. And it wasn't their fault that the most practical thing to do now was get Alec to a different apartment and leave him there.

But damnit, it was frustrating.

"Are you going to be okay here?" Seth asked, eyeing the place. Empty, like the last few apartments they'd checked in this building. Grimy, dusty, cold.

But Seth and Alec had liked this one both because it had electricity and because it gave Alec a view of the street leading to where the incident had happened. They were only a few apartment buildings down from where Jones and Wendel had been taken care of, but hopefully it was enough. Hopefully Alec would spend a boring evening watching nothing happen.

"Yep, I'm good." Alec said, sitting against the wall. He was just tall enough to be able to look out the window. "Have a scenic view here. What more could I possibly want?" He couldn't help the sarcasm. Letting some of his annoyance spill out into the open made the dull throb in his chest hurt a little less somehow.

Seth grinned slightly. "Yeah, definitely scenic." In another moment though, Seth was down to business. "Okay, so Sibil should be here in a few hours." Great. Another person involved. This situation had gotten so out of hand.

Seth eyed Alec with a practiced medical eye, obviously debating if Alec was going to be okay. That was half the reason it had been Seth and not Sidda who'd come with Alec to the new apartment. Seth and Sidda had wanted to make sure that Alec was still okay after a lot of movement.

"Go on," Alec said, smirking at his friend. "You've got a lot to do. I'll let Sidda know I'm fine."

They had decided that two main things needed to be done about the transgenic blood situation. First, the apartment needed to be cleaned up so that no trace of evidence remained. Because it was still swarming with cops, whoever in there would have to be sneaky and fast. With her specialty in getting out of impossible situations, Sidda had been chosen for that part.

To that end, Sidda had gone to a store to fetch a bottle of ammonia, and was probably now on her way back. Once she had finished, the police wouldn't be able to get any usable samples from the blood.

The other problem though was the blood samples that had already been taken. They had to track every single one down (if there was more than one) and replace it with other blood. Seth, in his usual strategic way, had come up with the brilliant idea of using the blood of the other Telic members they were killing. The other transgenic assassins could take vials of blood from their targets and swap them; this would create the appearance of a massive internal coup within Telic. It would also paint Telic as a disorganized, chaos-ridden group that shouldn't be taken seriously.

And with all that having to be done, Alec couldn't do much besides get himself out of the way of trouble and be the point of contact for all the transgenics coordinating with each other tonight. His trigger finger was going to turn into a speed-dialer.

"All right then," Seth said. He set a black backpack down in front of Alec and pointed inside. "Bandages, painkillers, antiseptic, thread and needle, water bottle, extra ammo for your gun… pretty much all the basics you need." He pointed to the front pocket of the backpack. "Snack bars and a cell phone charger." It was useful that Seth and Alec had the same phone type.

Alec nodded. "Thanks."

Seth stood up. "No problem." He glanced at his watch. "Okay, I'm going to head to the police station. If you get any more calls that I need to hear, just let me know." They'd set a few of the transgenics nearby to following police cars and listening to frequencies. Lizzy, a transgenic who had lost her mate in the Cultural Center bombing, had already located one vial. Lizzy was going to go ahead and take care of her target, collect a sample of blood, and then meet Seth outside the police station lab to make the exchange.

"See you later," Alec called out as Seth made his way to the door. Seth waved to Alec and then pulled the door shut behind him.

As soon as Seth was gone, Alec dialed Sidda's number into the phone. Transgenic memory recall could be so useful sometimes; they never had to worry that if they left a cell phone lying around, someone would discover their contacts. Nothing personal was ever kept on a phone, not when the memory was an even better storage unit.

"Hey, how are you?" Sidda asked as soon as she picked up.

"Great, fine and dandy, feeling like a kid who just got his first lollipop."

"Sidda laughed. "I'll take that as an 'okay, I'm not bleeding right now' then."

"Probably a bit more accurate," Alec admitted. "So is it all going okay?"

"Yep," Sidda said. "I was blurring back to the apartment when you called."

"Sorry I got you in this mess," Alec said lightly. But he really was sorry; this mission was definitely not going the way he'd planned it.

"Oh, you know me," Sidda said. "I thrive on a challenge."

Alec smiled. "You're right about that. Be careful, okay? And hey, love you."

"I will, and love you too." She hung up, and Alec pocketed the phone before turning his attention back to the window. Still nothing exciting happening outside.

Only a few minutes later, just as Alec was considering the idea of indulging in one of the snack bars, the cell phone began to buzz. He glanced down at it and sighed. Tonight was going to be a long night.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: **Dark Angel doesn't belong to me!

A/N: Thank you, awesome reviewers, for sticking with this story! You guys are fantastic, and sorry for the long update wait!

**Ex Multus Familia**

Chapter 6

Robin bent over the radio scanner in HQ, her eyebrows knit together and her 4/5ths of her intense concentration focused on whatever was being said. The last fifth of her attention was on Taylor and Aiden, who were currently being watched by Gem. There were a few transgenics in HQ besides Robin who had been called in to help supervise the new developments in the Telic mission. Max was sitting in front of the radios, her elbows on the table and her head resting in her hands. For someone who didn't have to sleep much, she looked exhausted, and she wasn't the only one. The grim mood was contrasted with the perky Christmas decorations around the place.

How had things spiraled out of control so quickly? Everything had been going so well, and then a few hours ago Sidda had shown up at her apartment with Aiden and some hurried, succinct explanation about how something had gotten screwed up and Alec had gotten shot and Seth was taking care of him. Sidda had promised to call as soon as possible, but Robin didn't hear anything for a couple nerve-wracking hours. She had been ready to take the kids up to Syl and Krit's apartment when Seth finally called.

After telling her that Alec and Sidda were all right, he let her know that there were some other complications related to the mission that had to be taken care of. He had sounded calm but hurried, and Robin understood what was going on. A botched mission had consequences that had to be dealt with, and now the team on the outside was going to go into overdrive to get their original mission finished.

Knowing that Max would want to know what was going on, Robin had called her and explained everything that Seth had told her about the mission. Soon after that, Gem had showed up at her apartment, looking half-peeved and half-terrified, with Crystal on her hip. Everett had called her to let her know something had gone wrong and that she should go tell Max what was going on. Obviously, there was a communication breakdown on the mission; Robin hoped that Seth would get that fixed as quickly as possible.

Unable to just sit and wait passively in the apartment building, both women went down to headquarters where they could at least listen to the scanners and watch all the news channels at once. Max had been there when they showed up, and she had all the scanners and TVs on while she tried to filter out anything pertaining to the mission. She had welcomed the company and the extra eyes and ears.

Other transgenics had trickled in, and most of them mentioned calls from the transgenics on the outside. Max had put everyone on stand-by and told them not to tell the others just yet; a widespread state of alert was likely to occur if that happened. It would be best to just let the team handle the mess that had been created, and then if that didn't work, the rest of the transgenics would worry about the consequences then.

Robin grabbed a coffee cup from the assortment of cracked and ruined mugs and filled herself up a mug full of cheap, strong black coffee. They had run out of cream and milk a few days ago, and no one had gone to get more yet, but at least there was some sugar left. After a few failed attempts to make the coffee a little more tolerable, she walked over to where Gem was half-heartedly entertaining the kids. All three of them were awake, which was odd since they were on schedules and should've been sound asleep. Robin guessed that the tension in the room was rubbing off on them, but there was no real way around it. She wanted Taylor close to her right now, and she hadn't been about to leave Aiden with someone else, not with both Sidda and Alec out there.

After taking a few sips of coffee, she sat down her mug and looked down at Taylor. The blue-eyed baby looked back up at her with a grumpy look on her face. It looked so pouty that it was adorable. Sighing, Robin reached down and picked her daughter up, cradling her in her arms. The one and a half year old snuggled against her mother's shoulder and put her head in the crook of Robin's neck.

"I wish they'd call us," Gem said, wearing a cross expression. "They should let us know if they need us."

"They will," Robin replied, "But they probably want to take care of it themselves before asking anyone else to stick their necks out." She brushed her fingers through Taylor's hair and thought about Seth. If he was partly in charge of this situation in any way, she had no doubt it was being conducted in an orderly, thought-out process with very few gaps or holes. "Besides, they've probably already got half of it handled already. They'll be home soon."

"I hope you're right," Gem said as she sat down hard in one of the chairs.

Robin fingered Taylor's tight curls. "Me too."

* * *

Well, wasn't this convenient. Sidda grinned as she watched the short little police man take a drag from his cigarette. The guy was a lazy bum; Sidda had only had to watch for about five minutes to figure out that he didn't have any assigned duties and was carefully avoiding any unpleasant task. He'd even turned off his radio because whenever people around him picked up theirs to listen, nothing came from his even though he pretended to listen to it. Probably an excuse in case someone called for him.

No one seemed to miss him either. Not a single police officer actually working had stopped to talk to him, and while a few of the others nodded their head or made a passing comment to him, it was obvious that if he disappeared for a while, no one would come looking or be surprised.

And then, just when she was debating how to get the guy off alone, he had decided he needed a smoking break away from everyone else. It was simply too easy.

Sidda scooted around until she was farther into the shadows of the alley, and then she waited for him to turn his back just a bit. With the way this mission had gone so far, it was better not to take any chances. She didn't want him to know who had attacked him.

It was easy, all said and done. Sidda walked up quietly behind him, and he didn't even hear her. She slipped one hand over his mouth and the other around his waist. Then she spun him around and kicked him in the balls. Once he was too much in pain to say anything, she let go of his mouth and knocked him upside the head. He slumped against her, and after that, it was simply a matter of stripping him of his outer clothes then tying him up with some of the rope she'd picked up on her way back from her ammonia run.

He probably wouldn't freeze before she got back.

Keeping the police helmet low over her eyes in order to shadow her features, Sidda made her way up the stairs, ammonia spray bottle in hand. She'd picked out one that wasn't see-through so that the contents wouldn't be obvious until she used it. That was the actual hard part; ammonia had a very distinctive, strong smell, and it wouldn't take long for people in the room to smell it. Once she started, she would have to work quickly and get out of there even faster.

Several other policemen hurried down the stairs and past her, and none of them even glanced up at her once. It was sad how unobservant people became when they saw a uniform. Terminal City really should consider investing in a few; Sidda had a feeling they would probably come in quite handy someday.

"Officer, what's that?" a man at the door to the apartment asked her sharply. Well, at least there was a pretense of security at the crime scene.

Sidda shrugged and rolled her eyes. "Some sort of fixative the lab guys want me to spray on the samples. Said it was going to make them easier to read or something like that." Her tone made it obvious that she felt like she'd been given grunt work and didn't care enough to find out more about the job.

The guy shrugged as well, reassured by Sidda's bored tone. Cops always expected liars to be nervous, but really, the most dangerous criminals were the best at lying and often got the best scores on polygraph tests. Just went to show how smart Ordinaries were sometimes.

Sidda moved past him and into the apartment. Since it had been a few hours since the cops had arrived, the scene was no longer as busy as it could've been. There were a couple cops in the living area making notes, and a couple just chilling out and talking in the kitchen area as they looked at the photos they'd already taken.

After a quick scan of the area, Sidda located the blood right where it was supposed to be: next to the kitchen table. A quick glance around, and Sidda was moving towards the table, lifting the bottle up, ready to spray…and then a flash outside, a glimpse of a familiar face, stopped her in her tracks.

It couldn't be…Sidda moved to the side a bit so she could get a better view outside. Shit. Sidda mentally yelled out a string of cusswords. White. And possibly three other Familiars, based on the way the three men surrounding him seemed more like bodyguards than anything else.

Sidda froze for a moment, countless options running through her head. But in truth, her hands were tied. She had to get this done now. She couldn't come back later, and she couldn't simply abandon the mission.

Well, that meant she would simply have to work faster.

If she was a human, her hands probably would have been shaking, Sidda thought as she moved back to the bloodstains and raised the bottle again. There was no way that Sidda was equipped to handle four Familiars all on her own.

But Sidda had to remain calm, focus on the mission, focus on thoroughly coating every inch of blood. Luckily Alec hadn't totally soaked the carpet, and Sidda could be fairly unobtrusive about what she was doing.

Before the Familiars had shown up, Sidda had just planned on taking the bottle away with her so that there wouldn't be any evidence, but that wasn't an option anymore. She didn't want to meet up with the Familiars while she still had ammonia in hand. So she went down the hall in search of a bathroom and found one right across from the bedroom. Hopefully Wendel had kept her cleaning supplies under the sink like a good Ordinary.

Sidda closed the door then quickly checked under the sink. Aha, success! She stuck the ammonia spray bottle in there between the Lysol and some cheap toilet bowl tablets. There were no windows here, so there wasn't going to be any dramatic bathroom escape. Sidda looked up into the mirror and focused her thoughts.

Okay, so, Familiars were here, and so was she, which was bad because there was absolutely no way that she was going to win a fight against for Familiars. She owed it to her family to get out of here safely; she didn't want Aiden to grow up without her and Alec would possibly drown himself in liquor if he thought that he was anyway responsible for her dying tonight at the hands of Familiars.

Sidda needed a way out that was unobtrusive, so that counted out the balcony or repelling down the side of the building; flashy, but not practical. Setting the helmet further down so it shadowed her face, she decided to take the direct but risky route. Front door it was.

Sidda sauntered out of the bathroom with a shirt from the bathroom floor in her hand. As she passed by an officer, she handed him the shirt. "Found this guy's shirt in the bathroom." It was probably just one of Wendel's pajama shirts or something, but it was providing her with the semblance of actually working on the case. She rolled her eyes in a mimic of the bored fashion of the Sector Police. "Wouldn't want anything suspicious getting left behind."

The other cop did the exact same eye roll. "Because a shirt is so important." He took it from her and slung it across his shoulder like it was a rag before he turned to talk to another cop who was smoking a cigarette and knocking the ashes onto the floor. At least some of the suspicion for the crime scene being ruined was going to fall on these goons. Sidda wondered if they even knew what CSI stood for.

With the normal, patent Sector-Cop Dull Frown on her face, Sidda walked through the apartment building, willing herself to be invisible. She should've thought about this possibility. Of course Familiars would show up when a transgenic-hating group leader was killed. Jones had been high-profile since the bombing and even before that, and it made sense that the Familiars would link his death with possible transgenic involvement.

Looking as normal as possible, Sidda turned the corner that led to the front door and automatically had to sidestep to avoid running into a man's chest. He did the same thing with a similar speed, and they looked at each other.

Years of training for intense situations was the only thing that kept the blood from draining out of Sidda's face as White smirked at her. "How about you watch where you're going, officer?" he said, harshness in his eyes.

Sidda bobbed an apologetic nod. "Sorry, sir, in a hurry." She spotted an infra-red scanner in one of his minion's hands. He was fiddling with in but hadn't turned it on yet, thank God. She started to slide past White and the other Familiars when White's arm darted out and blocked her path. She turned toward him and feigned confusion, a good way to cover up her own fear. "Sir?"

"You haven't seen anyone suspicious around here, have you?" he asked her, peering into her eyes and making her highly uncomfortable. "Or anyone that looks like they're too interested in their job?"

Sidda forced a laugh. "No, we already got all the people out of the buildings." She almost said Ordinaries instead of people… "And truthfully, ain't anyone that cares much about this. A couple whack-jobs with a good idea but poor execution, right?" She shrugged like it didn't really matter to her.

White pursed his lips and then walked off, leaving Sidda feeling as if she needed to just breathe for a moment, but as she had been trained to do, she carried on as if the encounter hadn't fazed her at all. The rest of her escape was quick. When she was out of the building, she walked across the street and into the apartment building where she, Alec and Seth had been hiding before. Just in case anyone was watching, she made it look like she had good reason to enter the building, looking at the windows before barging inside, like an officer who was going to search these tenements.

Although she felt like blurring, she made herself walk calmly up the stairs and into the room where she had a spare set of clothes that were a conglomeration of a couple things she had bought from the store and Alec's clothes. Going back to where she had left the officer had been completely out of the question, especially since someone could have found him, so she had left these clothes here to return to.

Now Sidda moved quickly. She was out of the officer's uniform and into the new clothes in a matter of seconds. Cheap grey sweatpants, her own sneakers, a t-shirt, and one of Alec's hoodie. She was swimming in the hoodie, which was part of the reason she had chosen to wear it. She would look like any other street person wandering around, and with thousands of street people wearing whatever clothes that could find, she would fit right in until she could get back to Terminal City.

Sighing, she pulled Alec's black toboggan down on her forehead, thinking about her mate and hoping he was safe. Somewhere deep inside she was hysterically laughing with relief and terror. Alec had survived a direct shot to the chest that would have killed him if someone had had better aim. She had run into someone who wanted to exterminate the entire transgenic population and survived a conversation with him. All she wanted to do now was go home, hold her baby and her mate and be grateful she was still around to fall asleep beside them.

* * *

Seth found Lizzy a few blocks away from the sector station, exactly where they were supposed to meet. Good, that probably meant that her part of the mission had gone without a hitch.

"Hey, everything all right?" Seth just wanted to make sure they didn't have any more problems to worry about before they moved on to clean up this one.

"Here," Lizzy said shortly, handing him a tube of blood. Not one to talk a lot even before her mate had died, Lizzy was pretty much unapproachable now. As an intelligence soldier, Lizzy had never had to have people skills, so Manticore hadn't bothered to drill those into her. Her spiky pixie cut and thin frame didn't exactly give her the appearance of being warm and welcoming either.

"Probably only one of us should go in there," Lizzy said, glancing down the street to where the sector station was. "Don't want to arouse extra suspicion by having two unknown people walking through the place.

That was exactly what Seth had been thinking before he had gotten there. "I'll go," Seth offered. Not only could he handle people better than Lizzy, but he wanted to oversee this part of the mission himself. When it was so important, Seth was hesitant to give a mission over to someone he hadn't worked with much before.

Lizzy shrugged. "Suit yourself. Do you need or anything, or should I just go lie low for a while?"

"Probably best that you lie low," Seth said, pocketing the vial. It wouldn't really look good for him to walk into the sector station holding a vial of blood. "Happen to see any sector cops wandering around that I could steal a uniform from?"

It would be convenient if she had, but…"Nope, they're all staying inside," Lizzy said. "I don't rate your chances high of finding a loner around here."

Seth sighed. 'Oh well, I wasn't that hopeful anyway." And he hadn't been. Just in case, he'd come up with a back-up plan. It would be interesting to see how well it worked. "Give me a rundown of the murder scene and then stay far away from there," Seth said. "The more detail, the better."

As Seth entered the building, he couldn't help but wish that he had a more solid plan. This felt so rushed, which wasn't usually Seth's style. Some half-assed ramblings about a friend calling about a murder seemed shaky ground, but the sector cops weren't transgenics. So hopefully they would let it pass.

And right before Seth had left Lizzy, he had her call in the murdering, timing it so they couldn't trace her location if they were even bothering to, and then he had her throw the phone away.

"Just make sure you call Everett and Alec with whatever new one you get," he said, "so you can stay in communication." She'd nodded her acquiescence and then taken off after reporting the murder. Seth had given it ten minutes, running in place a little to give him a sort of breathless and excited look, and then he'd headed down the street to the sector station.

"Umm..hey…um…excuse me?" Seth stepped up to the desk at the front of the station and looked around as if he was confused and unsure about what to do next.

The man at the desk sighed and looked at him. "Whatdya want?" the sector cop growled, obviously annoyed at being disturbed from whatever he was doing. He started tapping one finger impatiently against the desk, probably sure that the young man in front of him was on some sort of fool's errand.

"Well" Seth said, speaking hurriedly and with excitement, "My friend, my friend, she called me, right?" he bounced on his toes a little, as if he was just so full to bursting with information that he couldn't wait to tell it. "And she witnessed a murder!" he finished triumphantly.

The sector cop merely raised an eyebrow. "Where did this friend of yours see this murder?" the guy asked, lifting up a pen and still speaking with a bored tone. He rested his cheek on his hand and blinked glazed-over eyes. He had all the signs of someone who had spent the morning being hung over, and had heard about murders way too often to care anymore.

Seth rattled off the address, then continued on, speaking rapidly. "You know, I always wanted to be a sector cop, I thought it'd be cool, you know, fighting bad guys and stuff…" he looked around as if he was interested, but really he was doing a quick case of the place, taking in all the details. Not too many cops here…probably all out at Jones' murder sight. "Dude, could I get a tour of this place or something? That'd be so awesome…"

While he was talking, the desk cop (Peters, according to his nametag), had called another cop over by the name of Bruce. Peters handed Bruce the note he'd just written, then nodded his head listlessly as Seth continued to talk. Seth was beginning to lose hope that he'd ever get any sort of response from this guy.

But Bruce as more promising. He seemed amused by Seth's enthusiasm. "Hey, I got nothing else to do around here, if you want a tour I can give it to you after I file this report of yours. I'm warning you, there's not much to see though."

"That'd be great," Seth said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. He nodded at the one bench against the wall. "I'll just wait over there until you're ready."

Playing this character who was supposed to be talkative and excited yet trying to appear cool was very difficult and exhausting Seth decided, as he went over to where he said he'd wait. He had no idea how people who were naturally like this kept it up so much.

A few minutes later, Bruce wandered over, running his hand through his white blond hair. "So, you want a tour, kid?"

"Sure," Seth said as he stood up, wearing a wide smile that would befit the condescending title of 'kid.' The more harmless they thought he was, the better. He had his barcode covered with a turtleneck, jacket, shaggy hair and a toboggan, but Seth didn't like taking chances. He would rather them think he was some idealistic optimist than someone suspicious.

Bruce shook his head and gave a snort of laughter. "If you really want to be a Sector Cop, you don't know what you've got coming to you." He started to lead Seth through the station, and when he opened the door to the booking area, Seth thought his eardrums were going to bust with the noise. "Welcome to the Force."

There must have been some kind of sound dampening between the place he had came in and the booking area. The twenty odd people who were waiting to be processed were shouting profanities, screaming like lunatics, thrashing around, yelling at each other, yelling at nothing in particular. There was one guy singing the National Anthem, or he was until one of the cops knocked him over the head with a nightstick. While his ears adjusted to the volume of the voices, his nose was assaulted with the combined stench of drugs, unwashed bodies, vomit, urine, feces, cheap perfume and alcohol. Seth held his breath for a moment, but the odor seemed to seep into his nose anyway, making him physically sick. Bruce looked back towards him and laughed, so Seth decided he looked properly surprised and revolted.

"Gross, aren't they?" Bruce said as he walked into the booking area. "This is where we bring all the sleezes and whorebags and every other kind of city trash to process and then passed through to the Pit."

"The Pit?"

"The prison unit," Bruce said as if Seth's question had been entirely moronic.

Seth followed him and played the part of the curious, wide-eyed kid by looking everywhere as if he was becoming used to the situation and thinking of ways to improve it.

Someone whistled as they passed by, and Seth felt someone grab for his jacket. "Hey, pretty boy," a prostitute said, giving him a wide smile that looked just a little too masculine, "You the cutest thing, what you doing in here, I take you home, make the happy." The prostitute gyrated his/her hips. Seth stepped back from the crossdressing man as Bruce rounded on him/her and shoved her back into the line, snarling half a dozen insults in one sentence. Bruce led him through the booking area and into a quieter hallway.

"Still think you wanna fight the bad guys?" Bruce asked, one eyebrow raised as he looked back at Seth.

"They're not really bad guys," he said, making sure to sound sort of uncertain, "They're just, uh, misguided. That's what my grandfather always said, and he was a cop before the Pulse."

Bruce glanced back at him, a newfound appreciation in his eyes that Seth had planned. People who were in any kind of services liked to talk to people who were attached to the service in some way, like it carried some kind of weight. "Which precinct was he in? My old man used to be a cop too, Precinct 11." Ah, so maybe that's why he was humoring Seth. Too bad Seth didn't know precinct numbers.

"He didn't like to talk much about the details," Seth said, looking a little sheepish as his mind rushed ahead, "He had dementia, and he got really upset when he couldn't remember the little things."

Bruce nodded. "It happens." Bruce waved his hand at the hallway in front of them. "This is our science department. They do some CSI stuff, but we usually just send all the evidence over to the main headquarters, at least if it's important."

"What kind of evidence isn't important?" Seth asked, peering nonchalantly into the rooms. Alec's blood sample had to be here somewhere, and he had to get to it.

Bruce smirked over his shoulder at Seth. "The majority. You'll find out if you take the plunge."

Seth was vaguely amused at the Sector Cop's vintage bad cop movie language, but he was more concerned with his own mission. "Can we look in some of these rooms?" he asked with suppressed excitement and hope.

Bruce glanced down at his wristwatch then back up at Seth. "Hell, kid, I'm supposed to be working the yard right now, and if I don't switch with Marco, he'll burn my ass. Why do you want to go in there, anyway?"

"Oh, I dunno, I, um, thought it'd be cool," Seth said, shuffling his feet a little and trying to look like he was covering up embarrassment. Acting was one of his strong points, but he had never liked it very much. It was too much work when he just wanted to go right into things, without all this dissembling.

Bruce sighed. "Fine, you can go in, but don't touch anything. The CSIs will be watching you. When you're done, go back out the way we came in."

"Okay," Seth said, nodding, "But could I come back another day and see the prison?"

Bruce rolled his eyes. "Sure, kid, sure. I'm here every day." Bruce hurried off, leaving Seth alone outside the evidence rooms. If he hadn't been so relieved that he was getting this chance, he would've been annoyed with the lack of care these people were taking with criminal cases. People deserved some kind of fair trial and they weren't going to get it when Sector cops let anyone into the evidence rooms. At least it was working to his advantage at the moment.

Seth paused to collect himself, mentally going through what he would have to do when he entered the room. It really had been a while since he'd put himself so directly into a mission. Usually he was a little further behind lines, strategizing, planning, giving orders to larger missions. And it wasn't like Manticore had gone lax on his education; he was perfectly equipped to do solo covert missions like this. They just weren't his favorite, and since he was so much about planning, he still needed to take a little time for it when he had a chance to.

He didn't know how much blood the cops had managed to get, and he hadn't had time to wait for Sidda to call him and let him know what type of sample they might have pulled. So right before entering the sector station, he had made a few preparations.

Seth had several forms of samples ready to prepare. One was just the vial of blood. The next were a couple q-tips and an eyedropper that he could use to put some of the replacement blood on the q-tips. Hopefully they hadn't picked up anything else, because he would just simply have to steal the evidence if it was something else. If it came to that, he had a few empty test tubes as well.

The CSI room actually had only a couple of guys in it, and they were lounging in the corner of the room, looking at some magazine and not doing any work. What was wrong with this place?

One of the guys looked up at him. "Hey, what are you doing here?" he asked.

Seth grinned. "Bruce said I could come back here and look. I've always thought CSI stuff is cool. Do you mind if I take a look around?"

The other guy shrugged and returned to looking at the magazine with his partner. "Just don't touch anything." Seth supposed they'd never had anyone try to sabotage evidence before, because they seemed very unconcerned.

He strolled casually down each set of counters, making sure to stop often to look carefully at something. His hands were carefully in his pockets the first few times so that when the CSI guys looked over. They'd see he had no intention of touching. They quickly lost interest in watching him.

And just in time, because Seth finally reached the area for Alec's case. It was labeled by the address where the murder had been. Examining it carefully, he found a rack full of test tubes. Well, the good thing was that they hadn't seemed to have found much evidence. There were only two test tubes with q-tips in them, and one with a few fibers marked "carpet."

Well, the q-tips would be easy to replace. The carpet fibers…he was just going to have to steal that one and hope that the CSI guys assumed they misplaced it or mixed up two cases in their head. From the lazy way they were acting, he doubted they'd entered anything into a computer record yet.

Seth couldn't linger, so he moved around the counter, putting his back to the CSI guys. Then he worked quickly, pulling his samples out, prepping them, exchanging test tubes, and then finally stealing the one and replacing it when an empty one.

He did it all in a record twenty seconds, and he never wanted to be that rushed again.

Seth moved past the area where the new case samples were, and turned, using the pretense of just giving the room a general look-over as an excuse to look at the CSI people. They hadn't even looked up from their magazines, and Seth felt his chest loosen a little. He hated any chancy moment in a mission.

Just as Seth was about to look around the rest of the room just to finish up the show he'd been putting on, the guy who had first spoken to him looked up again.

"Hey, you done yet?" the guy called out, obviously a little irritated that his workspace was being invaded.

"Oh, um…sorry, yeah." Seth gave an apologetic grin and then quickly headed to the door. He hurried through the crowd on the other side as quickly as he could but still spending enough time to take the route farthest away from the prostitutes.

He still encountered several other unpleasant characters, including a guy who tried to pick his pocket and actually almost managed to grab one of the vials that Seth himself had pocketed.

"Try that again and I'll break your wrist," Seth snapped, rounding on the guy and catch his wrist with one hand. Perhaps he shouldn't have done that, but with all that had gone wrong with this mission already, Seth was slightly on edge. He squeezed lightly until the man winched.

"Let go man, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" As soon as Seth released his wrist, the guy muttered to himself and rubbed his wrist. "Fuckin' strong grip…"

Seth looked up, checking to see if anyone else had notice, but none of the cops in the room were sparing any of their attention for him. They were too busy brutally beating the people in the room, shoving them through the door into holding cells, and cursing loudly at anyone who didn't cooperate.

No more lingering. Seth was out of the building in a minute, and he took a deep breath of the clean air before pulling out his cell phone and entering a number into it.

"Alec? Yeah, my part's accomplished; it all went fine. Have you managed to get in touch with everyone else yet?" From what Alec said, everything was going fine now. There weren't samples anywhere else, Sidda had gotten through her part safely and was on her way back to where Alec was, and all the targets but two had been taken out.

Well, good. Seth was ready to get home to Robin.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: **Dark Angel doesn't belong to me!

A/N: Thank you, BlueEyedPisces, for reviewing the last chapter. It's much appreciated! And thank you everyone for reading along.

**Ex Multus Familia**

Chapter 7

"I'm going," Alec declared stubbornly from where he was putting his shoes on, "I'm going, and I'm going to eat a ridiculous amount of cookies, swig eggnog and do bad things to you under some mistletoe."

Sidda gave a huge sigh and draped herself over their little four-person dining table, cheek resting on the smooth, cool surface. "Come on, Alec, it's just a party…"

Alec had made his great escape from the infirmary earlier that morning when he had demanded that Sibil and Gray let him leave or he would leave without their consent. They had finally given in, but only when Alec had said he wouldn't do anything strenuous or taxing. That bullet had been a close call…not that he was really acknowledging it. Now, only a few hours later, he had decided they were going to the Terminal City Christmas Party, completely dashing Sidda's hopes that he would be content with staying in their apartment and watching Christmas specials on TV. No luck.

"Yeah, but I've been in the infirmary forever—"

"Three days," Sidda put in, lifting her head from the table and glancing over at him. "I understand where you're coming from, but it's not really going to be that great anyways…"

Alec grunted, and Sidda knew it was partly from the pain and partly from frustration. "Logan's going to be wearing a fat suit and a fake beard, and I'm going to be there to rub it in his face." He shoved his right foot into his boot and grumbled to himself under his breath about he could be just as stubborn as she had been.

Sidda slid off the chair and tried a new tactic. Slow and languid, she walked up to him and stopped when she was standing in front of him. He glanced up at her but went right back to lacing his boots when he realized what she was doing. "What if we made the most of it at home?"

"What, with claymation movies and a holiday CD?" he asked, rolling his eyes, "I know you don't think that's exactly entertaining, Sidda."

"Aiden's asleep," Sidda said, which was her second major reason for not going. If they went now, she'd have to wake him up, get him dressed and into a baby carrier to drag him all the way through the freezing cold, snowy evening to HQ where he would be harassed by half a dozen female X6s, normal X7s, and X8s who were attracted to X5 babies like they were magnets. Not to mention he'd probably be fussy, and his dad was fussy already… "We could cover the bedroom with mistletoe. And I could give you a peek at the present I got you."

He kept his eyes on his shoes but Sidda knew he was interested. Reaching down, she grabbed his hands and pulled them off his laces and put them on her waist.

"Sidda…" He sat up slowly, trying to cover a grimace of pain as his chest stretched.

Sidda smoothly lowered herself into his lap, her hands still holding his pressed to her waist. "We'll take it reaaal slow." She kissed him gently. "And you'll like your present."

Alec tried to keep frowning at her, but she had that mischievous look on her face, the one he had loved before he realized he loved her. "You're impossible, woman."

"Is a quiet night at home that bad?" she asked innocently, giving him a practiced pout.

"I'm afraid you're not asking for a quiet night, darling," he replied, affecting a British accent, "But I'm not sure it sounds that bad."

"Better than mercilessly teasing Logan?" she asked, fiddling with his shirt buttons.

Alec grabbed her hands and snickered as he stole a kiss from her. "Much. But I still want to go."

"I'm not the only impossible one around here!" Sidda exclaimed, sliding off Alec's lap much quicker than she had got on. She grabbed a pillow and popped him upside the head with it before he could respond. At least she didn't hit him as hard as she would have if he had been completely well. "Fine, we'll go to the blasted party, even if you do have a hole in your chest and Sibil and Gray told you not to go, fine! Prove to everyone that you're the invincible, irrepressible, indomitable Alec McDowell, since that's what this is about." She stomped off down the hall to go get Aiden up and ready, and Alec was pretty sure he wasn't going to get that peek at his Christmas present anymore.

* * *

Robin laughed as Seth twirled her with one hand while he held Taylor on his hip with his free arm. They were in the middle of HQ, dancing among a press of transgenic couples to a holiday song. Transgenics were crowded into headquarters, some crouched around TVs to watch old movies or listening to music or dancing or playing games or exchanging gifts. It was a strangely warm scene for a crowd of ex-soldiers, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves. Even Mole was getting into the spirit; one of the X8s had fashioned a sort of holiday crown out of tinsel and fake holly, and to his credit, Mole was actually wearing it.

Everyone seemed to be in a good mood; although there had been suspicion pointed at the transgenic community after the death of the major Telic members, most of it was directed away when the evidence seemed to support a theory that Telic had come apart at the seams. It had been unstable, people were now saying, and anyone could see that people that crazy about death and destruction would end up doing each other in. TC stayed quiet on the issue, and although some conspiracy theorists were raving about transgenic takeover, everyone seemed to be content at the moment to blame Telic for its own problems.

Seth pulled Robin close and laughed some of the lyrics into her ear, making her giggle and pressed back against him in a half-hearted need for space.

"I can't believe it all turned out so well," Robin whispered. Seth smiled down at her; his wife was practically glowing with happiness. And why shouldn't she be? Telic had been taken down, and in the process no one had died, and Alec had had the only injury. They were actually having a Christmas party, and despite the problem of the Familiars, everything just seemed better right now. Seth supposed that could just be holiday euphoria clouding his thinking, but for right now, he was going to let it do as it pleased.

"I'm thankful it did." He twirled her again, away from him, and they circled while holding hands before he brought her back in. Taylor gurgled at his side and both Robin and Seth looked down to find her beaming up at them.

"Well, somebody likes Christmas," Robin said, tugging on one of Taylor's curls. Taylor responded by burrowing her head into Seth's side, and Robin laughed and looked up at Seth, her gaze semi-accusing, but mostly teasing. "Such a daddy's girl."

"Yeah, well…" In an attempt to escape the accusation, Seth searched around for something to distract. "Well, I think daddy's little girl needs to see Santa Clause." His smile got even bigger as he caught a glimpse of Logan in the fat Santa suit. It got Seth chuckling every time he looked at Logan. Alec definitely needed to get here to share in the hilarity.

"I suppose…oh, wait, look, Sidda and Alec are here!" Robin said. She plucked Taylor from Seth's arms and gave the little girl a soft smile as Taylor cuddled into her embrace. "See? She's a momma's girl too," she murmured, momentarily distracted from her original intention.

Seth shook his head. "And you were saying…"

Robin laughed and looked up. "Oh, whoops! We should take Aiden and Taylor over together and get a picture or something." She stepped off the dance floor and reached one hand back to take a hold of Seth's hand before making her way over to their friends.

Alec and Sidda were busy stashing the baby carrier, and when they finished and saw Robin and Seth coming towards them, they waited in the corner near the door, where the crowds were a little less.

As soon as they reached Alec and Sidda, Alec immediately spoke up. "Hey! So Sidda told me this party wouldn't be any good…think I should leave?" He grinned at Sidda, who was holding Aiden, and she rolled her eyes before looking at Robin.

"He refused to listen to medical advice saying he should stay in. I was trying to convince him that being at home was okay."

Before Alec could defend himself, Robin and Seth both laughed. "As if you would have stayed at home if you were in his shoes," Robin said.

"That's exactly what I said." Alec pulled Sidda close to him and kissed the top of her head. "See, love? You might as well just give up on it. We're made of the same stuff, you and me."

"Don't I know it," Sidda muttered, but she was smiling.

"Hey, we were just going to take Taylor to see…Santa. Guys want to come?" Seth offered.

"Yes!" Alec was more than enthusiastic. "Seeing Logan in a fat costume with a beard is going to be the highlight of my evening."

"It's been amusing me all night," Seth agreed, and the two guys started towards Logan, still talking about how they were going to remind Logan of this night for the rest of your life.

Robin glanced at Sidda and noticed that she was watching Alec with a slightly worried frown. "Hey." Robin nudged Sidda with her elbow. "He seems fine."

"I know." Sidda kissed the top of Aiden's head, hiding her gaze from Robin. "I just can't help but be worried. Transgenics, you know…we don't get hurt often. So seeing him so affected by this wound…it seems like anything can hurt him now."

"He's still transgenic, and we're still pretty hardy," Robin said with a smile as she shifted Taylor to her other arm. "He'll be fine, and he'll be happier if you don't worry over him. But now you sort of understand why he worried over you so much after you had Aiden."

Sidda glanced at Robin out of the corner of her eyes. "Not the same."

"No, worse."

Sidda huffed out a breath of air. "Aren't you supposed to be on my side? As my best female friend?"

"I am!" I'm just saying…"

"I know, I know. And you're right." Sidda took a deep breath and smiled at Robin. "I'll use tonight to help put it behind me. What could be a better way to get my mind off of dark thoughts than an absolutely ridiculous party?"

"Nothing that I can think of," Robin said. The guys were already at the Santa line and were giving them impatient looks. "Come on, we better go over there…men can be so impatient."

"Seriously." Sidda met Alec's eyes across the room, and when he gave her a giant smile, she couldn't help but return one of her own. It been stupid to try to keep him away from this party, she realized. Alec liked having fun and hanging out with friends, as did Sidda. This was the first real Christmas party TC had ever had, and it would've been a little sad to miss it. And the party would help remind Sidda that Alec was transgenic, was healing, and was perfectly capable of just hanging around, talking, and maybe doing a little dancing. She certainly wouldn't mind a bit of dancing…

When she reached him, Alec pulled her close. "Not mad at me?" he asked quietly, one hand cupping her cheek as the other slid under Aiden so he could take him from her.

"Of course not." Sidda said, kissing him lightly. How could she be mad at him when he acted all sweet like this? It was unfairly impossible.

"Does that mean I get my present when we go home?" he asked, leaning in to kiss her again, a little longer.

"Hmm, we'll still have to see about that," Sidda said, giving him a mischievous grin before pushing away from him. "Come on, let's take Aiden to see Santa Logan."

* * *

Santa Logan was suffering. That was easy to see. Stuffing someone into a fat suit was never exactly easy, but luckily some of the transgenics had had experience with the suits, and after stealing one from a theater storage unit for the night, they had forced Logan into it. Santa Logan had been in better shape earlier in the night, before the younger X series had really gotten a hold of him.

Now Santa Logan's hat was missing, his leg had been peed on, and his beard had been transformed into pirate braids by a quick-fingered X8 girl. One of the little bra…kiddos had tried to run off with his glasses, but Max had caught him and forced him to give them back. Coal better be cheaper at the North Pole than it was in winter-struck Seattle.

The X5s, most of whom he was friends with, were starting to show up and ridicule him without pity. It was completely and utterly unfair.

Logan was startled when a kid was shoved into his arms. He stared at Crystal and Crystal stared back at him with wide, shocked eyes while Dalton stood three feet away, snapping pictures with a digital camera he must have stolen from Krit or someone who was more technologically inclined than he was.

"Dude, you look awesome! Smile!" the X6 demanded, nearly blinding Logan with the flash that glinted off his glasses and into Crystal's eyes.

He knew it was coming when big, giant tears started filling Crystal's eyes, and she started to turn her hands into fists. The howl that erupted from those little lungs might've broken his eardrums if he hadn't had that fluffy white wig on.

Dalton's eyes widened, and he lowered the camera. "Aw, what'd you do to her, Logan?"

"He didn't do anything," Anica declared as she appeared behind Dalton. The dark-skinned, dark-haired girl that sort of reminded Logan of a less-sarcastic Max glared at the blond male that she was currently dating. "You're the one that just shoved her at a stranger." She crossed over and scooped Crystal off of Logan's lap as the little girl burst into full-fledged, breathless sobs. Nearby, a couple X8s and normal X7s started giggling. Logan felt like crawling into a dark hole and scowling at Max for a long time for making him do this.

"Logan's not a stranger," Dalton said, "And even if he looks weirder than usual, he still smells the same." The grin Dalton shot him meant that he was just teasing, but it didn't do much to improve Logan's mood.

He managed a half-smile at the rowdy teenager. "Thanks, Dalton, I appreciate it."

"No problem," Dalton said, but his grin faltered a little when he realized that Anica wasn't participating wholeheartedly in the joke. He nodded to Logan. "Uh, see you later."

"Sorry, Logan, he's got less sense than the X8s," Anica apologized before she walked away, herding Dalton in front of her while she tried to comfort Crystal.

A hand landed on his shoulder and gave him a reassuring squeeze. "At least he didn't try to argue with you about the existence of Santa and his impossibility within the space-time continuum," Max said, bending down and kissing him on the cheek. He could see the laughter in her eyes though as she handed him a plate of cookies and a stereotypical glass of milk.

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked. At least she had thought to bring him snacks before everyone else devoured them. He knew better than to get up and try to get food for himself; the backside of this costume was enough to keep the transgenics laughing until Easter. "Is this payback for not coming to bed when you wanted last Friday?"

Max smirked and sat down on his lap, which automatically made his eyebrows quirk. She bent forward and that nice green sweater showed off more skin than it had a second before. "You volunteered, remember?"

"Yeah," Logan replied, grinning at her, "But I didn't volunteer for torture."

"I'll make it worthwhile," Max teased, pressing her mouth against his for a brief kiss that tasted like oranges and Gem's Dreamsicle cake. Logan found himself following her when she leaned back, not wanting to end that kiss.

"Hey, whoa, not in front of the innocent children!" Alec declared. Logan and Max broke away, Logan sighing while Max glared ferociously at who she considered to still be one of the biggest pains in her life, even if he was one of her good friends now. The dark-blonde male was holding Aiden and covering the infant's eyes, but Aiden was ruining the attempt by sucking on Alec's fingers. Beside him, Sidda was giving Logan and Max an apologetic look, but then there was Seth and Robin to complete the tableau of being caught.

As Max started to climb off his lap, Logan caught her by the waist and decided to have his own fun. "Let Santa have some fun," Logan said, pulling her back down into his lap.

"Logan," Max said, as she couldn't decide whether to be embarrassed or pleased, but she did blush.

"And now presenting Pimp Santa," Alec said, not to be outdone by Logan, "Giving a whole new meaning to that old, worn-out saying 'Ho, ho, ho!'"

"Alec!" Max, Sidda and Robin declared in unison.

"Uncalled for," Robin said, a disapproving expression covering up a possible smile.

Alec looked over to Seth for backup, but there was no calvary charge from that corner. He shrugged and brought Aiden up to his face, making the baby squeal and grab for Alec's nose. "Guess it's just you and me against the world, Bean. We might have to shanghai your mom though, or Pimp Santa might start thinking naughty plans."

While Sidda tried to rescue Aiden from his inappropriate father, Logan smirked and kept his arms around Max's waist. "I hope this is sort of what you wanted," he whispered in her ear.

"Definitely," she replied, "You, me and a fat suit. Life is perfect." She laughed, louder than she had in a long time, and Logan hugged her to him. It was good to hear her sound like she didn't have the weight of the world on her shoulders. It didn't happen often anymore.

The rest of the night was a lot of fun for everyone. No one managed to get drunk, but there was a lot of eggnog and hard cider drinking among the older X series. The younger children enjoyed teasing Santa Logan while the older ones snuck off to the bunches of mistletoe in the hallways leading off from main room in HQ. Dalton and Anica, as well as Twizzler and Emma, spent quite a while in those dim hallways.

And at the very end of the party, the children received little bags of candy and small toys. They were content and their parents and caretakers were a little less so. But no one could deny that the party wasn't a success. Everyone enjoyed it, and all of TC was there at some point or another. Logan, being very good-natured about his role as Santa, graciously accepted the title as honorary hit of the evening.

There was one minor surprise of the evening. Around 10 p.m., Syl approached Krit holding a shiny red-wrapped box in front of her and wearing a mischievous smile on her face. Krit's eyes widened.

"Whenever I see that smile, I get worried," he said, half-joking, half actually nervous. He eyed the rather large box in Syl's hands as if it would suddenly turn into a jack-in-the-box that could punch him. And knowing Syl, that was actually highly possible.

"Well…" Syl tilted her head, considering. "I don't think it's too bad. Yet." Krit frowned, but he obviously wasn't going to find out anything else until he opened the present. And a crowd was starting to gather. Great, many witnesses to whatever humiliation Syl had planned as a retaliation for him staying up til 3 a.m. this morning working on his new computer. He didn't blame her, but he still wished that this was a slightly less public place.

Krit studied the box, trying to figure it out so he could prepare himself. Instead of carrying it so that the lid was on top, Syl was carrying it with the lid facing him. Which again, increasing the probability of it being a Jack-in-the-box. Krit moved slightly to the side, and Syl made an exasperated noise.

"Oh, open it already! It's not going to kill you, I promise."

Krit reached for the lid, but he was still careful to keep back as much as he could, just in case. Gingerly, he pulled at the lid until it was lose, and then he quickly swiped it off of the front of the box.

Nothing happened.

There was a bunch of tissue paper in the box, so Krit started pulling it out. He tried to pull the box away from Syl so that it would be easier, but Syl shook her head.

"Nuh-uh. Keep going." Krit did, but then there was no more paper. He felt…Krit stopped and bent down so he could actually look into the box. "Is that your stomach?" he asked, very confused. Why had Syl removed the back of the box and stuck a bow on her stomach?

"Surprise!" Syl laughed and flung the box away, and as soon as everyone else saw the bow, they started laughed too.

"Hey, Krit, nice going," Alec said, nudging him in the shoulder and winking at him.

"Congratulations on what?" Krit asked, extremely confused by now. What the heck did everyone find so amusing? Was this some sexual reference that Krit didn't know about?

"Honestly, Krit, you can be so dense sometimes," Syl said, crossing her arms. "No wonder I'm always having to knock sense in to you. What possible reasons could there be for me putting a bow on my stomach?"

Krit thought for a moment, and then it suddenly dawned on him. His expression must have been painfully easy to read, because everyone else started laughing again even before he had said anything. "We're having a baby!" he shouted. He flushed as he realized how loud he was being. What if that was wrong?

But Syl was beaming, and she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. "I was hoping for a reaction somewhere along those lines," she said, after they broke apart. She removed one hand to place it on her hip. "Because Krit, I swear, if you don't help me raise this baby…"

"You face the wrath of the all-powerful, all-terrible, transgenic woman!" Sidda exclaimed.

"Exactly," Syl grinned at Sidda.

"I want to, I want to, hey!" Krit said, holding his hands up in protest. "I'm excited, really!" He actually was. He hadn't wanted to say too much to Syl about it because he felt it should be her choice since she had to carry the baby for nine months, but he was beginning to be a little envious of all his friends that had kids already. He sort of wanted one of his own too.

"I know," Syl said, in an uncharacteristically soft tone. She led him away from the crowds a little. "I saw the way you were watching everyone else's kids, and I realized I was watching them like that too."

"Well, good, it's settled then." Krit returned the earlier kiss, this one much longer and deeper. "We're having a baby and we're happy about it." He pulled back for a moment and frowned at her. "Next time we have one though, can the announcement be a little less public?"

Syl laughed. "We'll just have to see what mood I'm in," she said, returning to her more usual, bossy self. Krit didn't really mind.

After that the party pretty much slowly died a comfortable, content death. People left not because they were bored, but more because a lot of the younger ones were growing tired, and even some of the older ones were too. Plus Santa Logan, the highlight of the evening, had finally had enough and thus shucked the fat suit.

And tomorrow was Christmas day.

* * *

On the night of Christmas, Sidda and Alec's apartment had been invaded by people, basically everyone who had been on those first missions to nab the Manticore scientists over a year ago. It seemed so long ago now, sitting here in the apartments with a relatively stable existence even though they still couldn't do 'normal' work and couldn't go outside the gates without passes to go to a specific place, like the farm. Those details didn't bother them, since there were other ways of surviving than getting a 9-5 job and there were other ways of getting in and out of Terminal City. Joshua, Mole and Gem (with Crystal in tow) were there, too, and Dalton had brought Anica. Max and Logan had been invited, too, but they had decided to spend all of Christmas quietly.

The small apartment was cramped with bodies and was anything but quiet what with the babies gabbering, the adults talking and a rock-n-roll Christmas CD in the stereo, but tempers were non-existent thanks to the massive turkey dinner with sides that Robin, Gem and Sidda had spent most of the day cooking. Well, most of it had been Robin and Gem's doing, but Sidda had provided company and someone willing to make desserts.

No one really knew how, but Alec had managed to score a small, real Christmas tree for the apartment, and Sidda had decorated it with a simple string of colored lights, a few strands of Alec's popcorn, and some handmade ornaments that she had had Taylor and Aiden make. Robin had nearly had a conniption fit when she came to pick up Taylor and found Sidda and the kids sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, covered in fingerpaint. It had taken her a couple days to get the purple paint out of Taylor's angel curls, and she would still swear there was still a lilac tinge to a few of the curls in the back.

The kids, Crystal, Aiden and Taylor were sitting near the tree and playing with the wrapping paper leftover from Aiden's small stash of presents that morning. Santa had brought Aiden a plush stuffed dog, some blankets and a light-up, spinning…thing… and his parents had gotten him a couple other things, but he was obsessed with the shiny wrapping paper and boxes and bows. When Sidda had tried to clean up, he had thrown a fit and screamed until she had put the trash bag down to pick him up. Instead of going for her though, he had scooted toward the trash bag and began to rip everything out that she had just put in. Alec had been highly amused, and Sidda didn't have the heart to take it away from him again. Now she was glad she hadn't because all three babies had decided the shiny stuff was soooo much better than the actual toys. Joshua was sitting on the floor with the kids, and Crystal and Taylor were using him as a climbing post while Aiden was content to sit propped up against Joshua's leg and rip up wrapping paper. It was almost like a big bloodhound letting himself be abused by kittens.

"Sidda, next year we're just getting rolls of wrapping paper," Alec said from where he was sitting at the table, playing some kind of extremely complicated card game that used to be played back in Manticore with Seth, Krit and Mole. Krit, who had learned the game later, was suffering for the years of practice he had missed and was now in quite a bit of debt, or would have been if the women had let them play for money.

"You say that now, but you'll be the one who wants to get 'Super Expensive Weird Toy' next year," Sidda said. She was sitting on top of the counter in the kitchen, alternating between eating a brownie and dipping carrots in ranch dressing. She looked over at Robin and Gem. "Like it was this year," she muttered.

"I heard that." Alec glanced up at Sidda, but his gaze was more amused than annoyed.

She shot him a giant smile. "Love you!"

"I can't believe that works..." Robin said, rolling her eyes, "You're so manipulative."

"Nah, he likes it," Sidda said with a smirk.

"If all it takes to please babies is a few bows and a cardboard box, we are so set," Syl said, grinning over at Krit. He smirked back at her.

"Yeah, that's all it takes," he replied, shooting her a smile.

"It isn't," Dalton declared with a knowing smile. He had spent enough time babysitting Crystal for Gem to know that wasn't it. "But it's a start." He was sitting with Anica on the couch, both of them listening to the same cheap MP3-player Dalton had scored for Anica because she loved music so much.

"Something tells me that your kid's gonna love electronics, but always break 'em," Mole said around his cigar as he glanced over at Syl. "Murphy's Law and all included. Maybe you'll get lucky though, maybe it'll just be a nerd like Krit here."

"Thanks, man," Krit said sarcastically even as Seth and Alec shared a smirk. Everyone knew Krit was a nerd, and he was usually proud of it since he was amazing at what he did and was a damn good fighter to boot.

Syl grinned over at the big lizard man. "I could live with that." That perked Krit right up, and he got back into the game, a smile on his face.

The kids in their rambunctiousness knocked down some of the ornaments, and Sidda went to grab them; there was no point in hanging them up while Taylor, Crystal, and Joshua (at the moment, he counted as a kid) were still here, so she'd just set them off to the side until everyone had left.

While she was picking them up, she heard a strange, chirping sound. "What's that?" she asked with a frown. It sounded like it was coming from somewhere near Joshua.

"My phone," Joshua said apologetically. "Max makes me carry one. Can you get it please, Sidda?" Seeing as his arms were full of kids, Sidda thought it was only fair to retrieve the phone for him. Maybe Logan and Max were stopping by for a bit after all? Joshua had polished off all the turkey leftovers, but there were still some desserts in the fridge.

"Hey," Sidda said cheerfully into the phone. "Joshua can't easily talk right now because he's entertaining kids. So what's up?" She figured anyone calling Joshua would recognize her voice.

"Sidda?" Was that Sibil? "This is Sibil." Yep, okay.

"Is something wrong?" Sidda asked.

"Max brought Logan in a little while ago. The cure has failed. We need Joshua immediately." Oh no…oh no, poor Max and Logan. On Christmas?

Sidda turned to Joshua. "Joshua," she said softly, holding the phone out to him. "They need you at the hospital."

Max was in the waiting area, crying, when they got there.

"Max," Robin said, immediately went to wrap an arm around her. Sidda sat on her other side, and Syl sat in front of her. Gem had very kindly agreed to stay back and watch the children, who had all grown sleepy and weren't in the mood to be moved. Krit and Alec also stood close by while Seth when to check with the doctor and find out Logan's status.

"Hey, Max," Sidda said, squeezing one of Max's hands. Max gave her a weak, watery smile and a barely audible 'hey' in return.

"We heard about what happened with Logan," Syl said, blunt as usual. "You okay, sis?" Max put her head down and tears ran down her face; well, that answered that.

Joshua had gotten there before the rest of them; he had run to the hospital while they were preparing to leave the kids and presumably he was already in there with Logan, donating his blood. He was probably one of the most giving and generous transgenics in Terminal City.

As soon as Seth started to approach Gray, the older transgenic sighed and rubbed at the corner of his eye. "It'll be fine," Gray said quietly, glancing at the room where Logan was being held." He's got a lot of transgenic blood in him anyway, which is why it also took so long for the virus's effects to show up."

"What do you mean?" Seth asked, unconsciously crossing his arms like he usually did when contemplating a difficult problem.

"Well, from what Max said, he'd been feeling poorly all day, but they just assumed it was a cold or virus that was weakening him. It was only when he started stumbling around that they realized something was going on. And even then we didn't know what it was until we started running tests." Gray gave the waiting room a sympathetic look. "We actually called Joshua before we told her…she just found out, poor woman."

Seth grimaced. "So at this point…"

"We should be more worried about what this is going to do to Max rather than Logan. Even though this case proves the virus is no longer fatal, she's going to be angry with herself, afraid of going near him, and then upset and depressed because of that." Gray shook his head, a worried frown digging deep liens into his face. "Seth, she can't run the government in the state this is going to leave her in."

"So wait…we're back to not knowing the Cure then?" Seth asked in disbelief. All that work he and his friends had gone through, back when he'd first met Robin…that had all been for nothing? Well, he supposed since he'd ended up with Robin that it hadn't totally been for nothing, but still, their mission…

Gray leaned against the door. "Since it worked for so long, Sibil simply thinks we missed something when we created the cure. A small step. We have to have a good foundation, based on how effective this last one was. But yes, we're essentially backtracking now. We'll need to try again…hopefully these two will be up for it."

Gray's gaze slid away from Seth's and focused on something over Seth's shoulder. Seth turned to see Robin coming towards them. She hesitated for a moment and Seth held out his hand, indicating that it was okay she interrupt.

Robin quickly moved to Seth's side, and he drew her in close to him. "Is Logan okay?" Robin asked. "We can't get much out of Max at the moment." She bit her lip in worry; Seth touched her lip, causing her to loosen up her grip on it before she cut through and bled.

"He's stable now," Gray reassured her. "And we told Max that. But…"

"But she's still taking it hard." Robin finished his sentence for him. "I don't know Max as well as Syl does, but from what I do know, that's not a surprise." Robin took a deep breath and then kissed Seth on the cheek. "I'm gonna go back there to be with her, love."

Seth nodded and kissed her back before relinquishing his grip on her. It was times like these that made him so happy that he'd found her after Manticore, found that she wasn't dead, and had gotten to marry her. If he had Logan and Max's problem…it was a very bitter, awful situation.

At times like these, Seth also found comfort in being as useful as he could possibly be. So he went with Gray into Logan's room to look at the charts and see if they could find any reason for the Cure's sudden failure.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: **Dark Angel doesn't belong to me!

A/N: Thank you, peculiarxemma and BlueEyedPisces for reviewing the last chapter! Thanks bunches! XD

**Ex Multus Familia**

**Chapter 8**

The news about Logan spread around Terminal City faster than any disease, and a rumbling of unease began the day after Christmas. No one expected Max to continue running the city, not with this unexpected, very unfortunate development hanging over her head and obscuring rational thought. No one blamed her or Logan, or at least they didn't say anything where the gossip would get back to the star-crossed pair, but it was a fact that Max was leaving them very abruptly leaderless.

Things became somewhat bumpy when Max disappeared entirely, leaving others to give out sometimes contradictory orders. Without a leader or a definite governing body, the tension around Terminal City built gradually as people started to step forward and issue commands without consulting anyone else. A few things that were already set in place or had people running them kept going smoothly, but there was no one to deal with immediate problems, so proactive people took that on themselves. There were no government meetings scheduled, which was a good thing since there was no one to represent the definitive collective transgenic response. The agent who had replaced the relatively useless Kenton was an office-type man who tried to stay away from Terminal City as possible.

Most of the building and renovation projects kept going the way they had before, but a couple unsanctioned new ones popped up and stole man-power from the already established work places. One of the X4s had decided that she needed to build a bar while one of the transhumans started clearing out an old lab to convert it into a restaurant. Neither idea was especially bad, but the fact that they hadn't consulted anyone and were taking workers from more useful projects was starting to rankle the on-edge community.

No one was keeping up with who needed supplies and which supplies were needed; instead everyone just complained to Alec directly about what was missing. He kept his teams going out to either buy or steal what was needed, and he relegated a few of them to sifting through the requirements based on level of importance, but since no one kept inventory, they ended up with an overabundance of some things and not enough of others.

Like the twelve microwaves, three boxes of boots and mountain of comforters that were currently packed into Alec and Sidda's apartment with nowhere to go.

"I can't even move around in there," Sidda complained to Robin, "It's like living in a warehouse. A very oddly stocked one."

With both of the kids being taken care of by their dads for the afternoon, the two female transgenics were working in the back room of the Terminal City Commissary, which was located inside the HQ complex. Basically the equivalent of a grocery store, the TCC had been set up when the mess hall had been phased out and people started cooking for themselves. You had to work to get food, of course, but since everyone in Terminal City worked to keep their hell hole from falling into even worse decay, no one was turned away.

"Why don't you bring it here?" Robin said, motioning to the rest of the store room. "It's not like there isn't enough room."

"Yeah, but Alec thinks if we bring it all here, someone's going to take more than they need and sell them for their own profit," Sidda replied with a sigh, "Things have started to go missing a lot lately." She shrugged after she picked up a box. "I mean, no one's perfect, people have always stolen stuff around here, but it's gotten worse."

"I noticed," Robin said. She put a box of dried food up on a shelf. "We really need to hold elections or something."

"Everyone's afraid to say it," Sidda replied. She shoved a crate of cans toward a corner of the rather small room. There wasn't need for a larger one; with everyone always coming here for food, they didn't keep much of anything for long. She straightened up and rubbed her dusty hands on her jeans. "We're all so used to Max leading that –"

"No one really wants to step up and take that responsibility. I know," Robin said with a slow nod, "But if things keep going the way they are now we're going to end up in a permanent state of anarchy."

Sidda smirked. "Now what's so wrong with that?"

"Oh, I don't know. I guess the destruction of everything we've built isn't too bad, all things considering," Robin said, rolling her eyes as she headed to the door.

"I always thought fire and chaos mixed with brainwashed killing machines was a good idea," Sidda teased before darting out the door and into the main part of the commissary. Robin was about to retort when voices started to rise near the front of the small building. Someone wasn't happy.

"What do you mean, you're not going to give it to me?" snapped a blond-haired, stocky X3 named Camp. He had his jaw jutted out in anger, and cold gray eyes were trained on the equally furious-looking transhuman who was currently in charge of making sure no one took off with more than their fair share.

"You've already got four bottles of vodka and a case of beer," Kyle, the transhuman, replied, scowling at Camp. "You don't need a bottle of wine on top of that."

"Don't tell me what I need, you bird-faced freak," Camp snarled back. Kyle, who was a hawk-mix, scowled, predator eyes narrowing over his yellow and black, not to mention intimidating, beak.

"Who're you calling freak?" he said in a slow, dangerous voice, "You think you and the rest of your kind are any different from us freaks? At least we accept who we are."

"Yeah, yeah, sure you do. You and all the afflicted, mangled screw-ups here, you guys know who you are. Good for you, Basement trash," said Camp. Amazingly, Kyle managed to stay calm and not attack the mouthy X3, but the look in his eyes let everyone know he was thinking about how fast Camp would bleed out if he went for the jugular.

Robin and Sidda exchanged worried glances as other people started to listen to the conversation and the inevitable muttering began. This kind of talk about the differences between transhumans and the rest of the transgenics hadn't been a big problem in a long time. There was always some grumbling and prejudice but the flat-out hate and bigotry that had been around when TC was first created had been phased out a long time ago.

Neither Robin nor Sidda had been around for that, but they remembered how the groups had mostly kept to themselves when they had first arrived. Anxiety and tension were starting to run high again, and everyone was just looking for someone to punch their buttons or stomp on their last nerve or whatever so they could let out their frustration. It seemed like Camp wanted to start a fight and perhaps bring everyone else in the Commissary into it.

A transhuman with scaly skin, probably more related to a snake than a lizard like Mole, stepped up next to Kyle. Sidda wasn't sure, but she thought his name was Jim. A rather innocuous name for someone who didn't exactly blend into the crowd, even in Terminal City.

"Basement trash? Really." Jim's voice was a soft hiss. "At least we weren't not failed cast-offs, shoved into useless jobs by a corporation that didn't have much use for us.

Camp's eyes widened with anger, but he was still talking instead of fighting. "Oh yeah, because being a field grunt is so great."

"We need to do something, or we're going to have an all-out bar-style brawl," Sidda muttered to Robin as several other transgenics and transhumans started to step forward and yell out things. The alcohol that had started the fight had been set on a nearby counter and was totally forgotten.

"Yes…" Robin asked, looking around to see if there were any calm faces in the crowd. Not many; everyone was just way too tense. A few people could just be anxious about the brewing situation, but most looked angry.

Sidda frowned, realizing Robin was right. Anyone who stepped in was going to be accused of being biased toward one side or the other. Even Max might not have much luck at this point. If she stepped in, it was highly possibly everyone would turn on her, subconsciously resenting her for the way things had fallen apart in the last few weeks. They seriously needed to figure out some new leadership, fast.

Suddenly Camp struck out and caught Kyle in the face. Kyle's beak opened and closed threateningly, and in a moment he was tearing out chunks of skin from Camp's arm. It looked highly painful. Jim also dove for Camp but another X4 caught him and pushed him to the ground and started clobbering him while Jim attempted to strangle the attacking X4.

"Idiots," Sidda muttered. She turned to Robin and handed her the shopping bag full of cans and packages. "Put that somewhere safe, would you?"

Robin nodded and went to stow it under a table; when she turned back around, Sidda had moved in the fray and was furiously trying to push apart a transhuman and a transgenic. She wasn't having much success; being both males and enormous, they had longer arms than her and were managing to get at each other around her. Robin sighed and shoved the food a little further back and then went to join Sidda.

"Look, can you pull that other guy back?" Sidda yelled at Robin as soon as she saw her reappear. Technically, the guys were probably stronger than them, but Sidda was counting on the fact that since she and Robin weren't attacking, they wouldn't fight them too hard. "Tie 'em up with some rope or something," Sidda growled.

The transhuman, one who looked like he had some lion in him, heard Sidda, and apparently resented the idea of being tied up. He turned around and shoved Robin away against a table, and she cried out as she hit the table's corner.

Sidda swore. "Damn it, that's it." She swung around and grabbed the guy she was trying to restrain by the collar. "Listen up, stop fighting and start breaking up people, hear me?" The guy stared at her for a moment, probably registering that she was Alec's mate and if anything happened to her there would be hell to pay. He blinked then nodded.

That would have to do for now. Sidda slipped through the crowd over to lion-guy who seemed hell-bent on coming back at the guy Sidda had just dealt with. Sidda roundhouse kicked him in the groin just as Robin karate-chopped him in the neck from behind.

Robin shrugged. "Sorry, he was so big I couldn't see you coming." He was a pretty big lump of a guy; even doubled-up on the floor he was a big enough obstacle that he created a small wall.

"Whatever, he was being a pain, he deserved it." Sidda didn't have any patience for people who weren't idiots acting like they were. She looked back at the mess behind them; there were a few others trying to break up the fights, but it was awful. There had to be at least twenty people fighting.

"We should invest in tasers," Sidda said, folding her arms as she decided which group to go after next.

Robin hopped over the body. "Say, the team on patrol is sort of supposed to keep the peace…should we call them?" That was a thought, but the patrol wasn't very large, and they tended to be made up mostly of the younger transgenics and transhumans. They'd also never trained for crowd control, and by the time they got to the Commissary, Sidda was hoping there wouldn't be much fighting left.

Sidda rolled her eyes. "Might as well call Seth first. We're going to need some medics by the time this is done."

A transhuman and transgenic locked into some sort of semi-wrestling move with hands locked on each other's arms almost backed into Sidda. She was tempted to leave that pair alone since they weren't doing much besides tiring themselves out at the moment, so she just shoved them away.

Robin nodded toward the center of the fray where Camp and Kyle were still fighting; Camp was bleeding profusely and one of Kyle's eyes was already starting to swell up. "Want to try to break it up where it started while I call Seth?"

Sidda sighed. "I'll see what I can do."

Robin pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and moved to a semi-safe location where no one was fighting. From here, she could keep an eye on the brawlers and still talk to Seth without having to worry about being attacked at random. Or at least she hoped so.

Seth picked up after the third ring. "Hey, Robin," and a second later, with confusion, "Where are you?" He must have heard all the noise. It was pretty loud in the Commissary with shelves toppling over, people shouting and screaming, and all sorts of food being smashed, ripped apart or shredded during the fight. There were a few people trying to break things up, but there were even more people willing to thrash each other while they could, even at the expense of the entire stock of the Commissary. Oh, there went a window pane.

"Um, we're still at the Commissary," she said, trying to sound pleasant and calm.

"Is there a sale or something?" Seth said. He was teasing, especially since they didn't use money at the TCC, but there was an underlying seriousness to the question. He wanted to know what was going on.

"Well, the truth is, a couple of hotheads started a fight," Robin explained, "It's gotten out of hand and now the whole place is basically in on it."

"Are you okay?" Seth demanded, just as Robin expected he would.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just a couple scrapes, no big deal," Robin said, "But I think we'll probably need a medic or two to help when everything settles down."

She could hear him moving around the apartment, and Taylor giggling in the background. "Okay," he said with sigh, "I'll be there soon, just let me find someone to watch Taylor. I'll bring some people to help."

"That'd be great, hopefully it'll be over before you get here," Robin said, trying to sound optimistic even when she had to dart out of the way of three people fighting each other, two X6s against some kind of transhuman. She ducked to avoid a wild swing.

"Robin, stay out of it if you can," Seth said, "Try talking to them."

"I don't think talking is an option at the moment, love," Robin said, ducking behind some of the still standing shelving units. "But we'll see."

"I'll be there soon," Seth said before they exchanged I-love-you's and hung up.

She walked out from behind the shelving unit and watched as Sidda and a drafted helper plus a couple other people plunged into the thick of things and went straight for Kyle and Camp. Two male transgenics, one the guys from earlier and the other an easy-going X4 female, went for Camp, one grabbing him around the waist and hauling backwards while the other shoved him in the chest. Sidda and a female fox-mix transhuman named Anne tried to move Kyle away, but it turned out that neither Kyle or Camp were giving up easily.

Camp turned on the two transgenics who had grabbed him, lashing out at them with his fists. He caught the X4 woman in the side with a kick and sent her backwards into a counter. Robin hurried to help, snatching back his arm just as he started to punch the other transgenic. Battle rage seemed to be too much for him, and Camp turned on Robin, landing a punch to her right eye before she could duck or moved out of the way. She reeled back, her face hardening as Manticore training came to the forefront.

Robin snapped a punch right back, hitting him in the stomach, once, twice, a third time. There was no time to talk or berate him, just time to subdue him. This fight had gone on long enough, and Robin was tired of it. The other guy jumped into full-action mode then and tackled Camp, taking him to the floor. Scowling, Robin sat down on Camp's shoulders as the other two transgenics did the same thing, forcing Camp to be still and stop fighting.

Kyle was still ready to tear into Camp when Sidda and Anne made a joint attack on him, so it was inevitable that he was going to lash out at them. Neither of them escaped his talon-like fingernails, but at least all his attacks to the eyes were thwarted by quick reflexes; they managed to get away with a few claw marks on arms and shoulders instead of gouged eyeballs. Sidda, as an X-series instead of a transhuman, attracted more attention than Anne, but the reasoning for her going after Kyle instead of Camp had been that he would be less likely to attack someone that looked as defenseless as Sidda.

Anger was a good blinding force, and Kyle's hooked beak snagged Sidda's arm, taking a good-sized chunk out of it before he pulled his head back with a jerk when Sidda cried out. He huffed out a few startled breaths and stopped fighting, allowing the two women to shove him away from Camp. Wild-eyed, he stared across the room at Camp, but he didn't attack Sidda or Anne again. Probably a good thing since both of them were now pissed off and bleeding.

Around the Commissary, other peacemakers were breaking up the fights, and some of the combatants stopped when they saw that Kyle and Camp had been broken apart. The senseless, stupid mini-civil war seemed to be coming to an end, and bickering, growling and grumpy silence started to take the place of the previous cacophony.

"Whoa, what?" Alec looked up from the diaper he'd been changing; Sidda had insisted he'd become competent at it. He had but very reluctantly. It was definitely his least favorite of the baby-chores, and Alec especially didn't like it when he had to do it at someone else's place.

But he and Seth had come over to Krit's apartment to take a look at the security system Krit was working on. They couldn't give him much technical advice, but since Seth specialized in tactics and strategy, and Alec was extremely good in getting into places where he wasn't necessarily wanted, it had been logical that Krit ask them to see if they could identify any holes. They'd picked out a few weaknesses before the odor of Aiden's diaper had forced Alec to grab Aiden and take over Krit and Syl's guest bathroom.

"Robin just called, and she said that a fight broke out at the commissary," Seth repeated, although he knew Alec had heard him the first time.

"That's what I thought you said," Alec muttered, looking back down so that he could tape up Aiden's new diaper. "I was just hoping I'd suddenly lost some of my hearing ability." He bundled up the old diaper and while he threw it away while Seth grabbed some paper towels and hand sanitizer to wipe down the bathroom counter. It would be much more convenient when Syl and Krit had a baby changing table of their own.

"They need some medics over there, and I figured you would kill me if I didn't let you know so you could come. Syl's already agreed to watch the babies while we're gone."

Alec stared at Seth. "I thought this was just a one-on-one fight," he said, picking Aiden up. "How bad is it?"

Seth threw the paper towels away and washed his hands. "I don't really know," he said, his tone serious. "Bad enough that Robin called me to warn me that they might need medics. And I heard a lot of noise in the background."

Alec's mouth tensed, and he nodded before the two of them headed out of the bathroom. Syl was in the living room, playing with Taylor and some of the toys Seth had brought for her. Syl had warmed much more towards the kids ever since she had found out she was going to be having one.

"I gather you'd like me to look after that one too?" Syl said, smiling and holding out her arms.

Alec was too grateful and worried at the same time to say anything sarcastic. "Yeah, that'd be great. Thanks, Syl."

"No problem. Just don't forget them, okay? And let me know what happened when you get back."

"Will do," Alec said. He glanced at Seth, and Seth nodded, holding up one hand to show he'd grabbed his medical bag. He always carried it with him if he was going anywhere for a while or far away from home; he just never knew if he was going to need it.

On their way through HQ to the commissary, it was obvious that word of the fight had already leaked out into the rest of Headquarters. The main room and side offices were virtually empty; probably everyone had gone to see if the fight was still going on.

When Seth placed a quick call to the infirmary to see if they had sent anyone else there, Sibil confirmed that one of the X6s was already on location. "Most of the reports were cuts and bruises, so we thought he'd be okay. You might want to help him deal with the one concussion though."

Seth and Alec looked at each other, both obviously thinking the same thought. They hoped Robin and Sidda had nothing to do with the concussion.

As soon as they stepped into the infirmary, transgenics rushed Seth, some demanding attention for their wounds but mostly wanting to recount the injustices done them by whoever they had been fighting against. It was ridiculous.

"Anyone seen my wife?" Seth asked, wondering if it was going to be possible to at least make sure she was okay before he had to deal with these idiots.

"I'll find her," Alec said, using it as an excuse to edge out of the crowd and find his own mate. It wasn't like he was a medic anyway; sure, he could do field medic stuff, but when there were people around more highly trained then him and not many serious injuries, there really was no need for his limited skill.

Alec grimaced as he made his around transgencis and transhumans . Some were talking angrily, some were slumped against the wall or n the floor, and most were shooting dark glares at someone. All were way too tall; he loved his petite mate, but it did make it sort of hard to find her in a crowd.

He saw her and Robin in a corner, sitting and talking with a fox transhuman and some other transgenic he didn't know very well. He felt relief; neither looked very damaged, although he didn't like the look of the bruise on Robin's eye or the way Sidda had her hand clasped over a spot on her arm.

Sidda's back was to him, but she still seemed to sense him coming because she turned when he was still a few feet away from her. Maybe it was Robin's fault for looking at him as he approached. But Sidda welcomed him with a warm smile that was all for him, and he saw her eyes go from looking mostly tired and pissed to more like tired, pissed, but-I'm-happy-to-see-you.

Alec sat down behind her and wrapped his arms around her at the same time so that Sidda could lean back against him. Sidda sighed. "This place is a mess."

"So I can see," Alec observed, looking around. "It's going to take a few weeks to clean up." Sidda snorted, and he grinned down at her. They both knew that she'd been talking about Terminal City in general.

"Oh." Alec looked back up and at Robin. "Seth is over by the doorway." He glanced back behind him, but he couldn't see his friend; there were too many people over there. When Alec looked back at Robin, she was already standing up to head over there. "Well, I guess that means I don't have to pass along the message that Seth wants to see her."

Sidda laughed. "Well, that's sort of assumed, love." Well, that was sort of true. Alec started to shift his arms around Sidda a bit, and then he was reminded of something.

"Hey, did you get hurt?" he asked, trying to pull her hand away so that he could see what had happened to her arm.

Sidda kept her hand firmly on her arm. "It's nothing, it's a scratch."

"Yeah, like the ones on your face?" he asked, reaching up and brushing his fingers gently but quickly across the dried blood on her left cheek. Sidda smirked and leaned away from his hand.

"Battle wounds," she said, "Too bad we don't scar. These would look pretty hardcore, you've gotta admit."

Alec carefully pried her fingers off her arm and untied the hastily tied bandage. It was an ugly wound; it looked like someone had gone at her with a knife and managed to get a chunk of her. It was still bleeding sluggishly. He frowned at her. "And this is hardcore too?"

"Yep," Sidda replied, taking the piece of cloth and putting it back over the wound. "Very hardcore."

"Yeah, you're badass," Alec said, rolling his eyes. "Who did that to you?" He wanted to know who he needed to…talk to. "And who punched Robin?"

Sidda shrugged and leaned against him again. "It was an accident, just people being hotheaded. No one meant anything by it." She stood up and smiled over at the fox transhuman and the transgenic, both who looked like they were conspiring with Sidda on this plot to keep things from him. Sidda started picking things up from the floor. "I'm guessing you left Aiden with someone reliable?"

"Illegal subject change," Alec said, calling her out on the rather abrupt and noticeable evasion tactic. "And yeah, as long as we're considering Syl and Krit reliable." He got up and started helping her, deciding that if Sidda was going to be stubborn, he would wait a little while before dragging her over to Seth to get her looked at. She knew her own limits, and compared to some of the things she had gotten herself into, having a cut on her arm, even if it did look nasty, really wasn't something to fight with her about.

Over near the front of the store, Seth and a couple other medics who showed up had set up a small area to handle all the injuries. The other medics, Kelly, the X6 who had gotten there first, Jericho, and a male transhuman named Regan were all attending to the minor wounds of the combatants while Seth talked to Robin and made sure she was okay. The slow-forming bruise on her right eye had him internally raging, but he knew that making a big deal about it would only upset her and possibly lead to another fight breaking out, mainly between him and whoever hit her. Robin wasn't forthcoming with the name of who had hit her, but Seth caught Camp looking sheepishly at her every now and then, and Seth didn't think there was really much question as to who to blame.

"What exactly happened?" he asked Robin quietly, very calmly as he flashed a penlight into her eyes. She followed it obediently as she talked.

"Camp tried to walk off with too much alcohol, Kyle stopped him, insults were exchanged and then it all descended into chaos from there, X-series against transhumans," she said. She fiddled with her hands in her lap. "It was really stupid, actually."

"And you were hit when?" Seth asked, setting down the penlight and leaning in towards her.

"Near the end," she replied succinctly, "And I'm fine, Seth, really." She kissed him gently. "I think we have bigger problems to worry about than me having a black eye."

"I think that's a big problem for me," Seth said, keeping his expression serious, "People are going to think I beat you."

Robin stared at him for a moment and then burst out laughing. "As if people would ever think that. You're too good, and besides, I wouldn't let you hit me."

"And that's one of the many good reasons I married you," Seth said, kissing her on the cheek. He helped her slide off the table she was sitting on and then looked over at the group of embarrassed and angry-looking people who were waiting to be seen by a medic. He sighed, wishing he could just walk out of here with Robin and forget about this, but it was against his ethics. "We need to do something about this."

"I think a few bandages, some stitches and some antiseptic might handle it," Robin replied, sending him a smile before nodding. "But you're right. Things are getting a little…"

"Out of hand," he finished for her.

Robin took his hand and gave it a squeeze before glancing around the store. "I'm going to go help Alec and Sidda clean up a little. We'll, uh, brainstorm for a solution, I guess."

"I'll think about it too," he said, squeezing her hand back. He was reluctant to let her go, but he knew that he needed to do his job and that she was perfectly okay…or at least looked like it. She probably had other injuries that she wasn't telling him about; he'd find out later, and if they were bad enough…Camp was going to be in need of another medic, maybe a team of them.

Wiping at his face, Seth turned to the gathered injured. "Okay, who's next?"

"I am," said Ally, an X6 female with an expression that clearly said the fight hadn't been knocked out of her yet, even though there was a big gash on the left side of her forehead and blood was dried onto her face. Seth was about to tell her to take a seat when a transhuman beside her, an Arctic unit, scowled at the both of them.

"Look, I know you're both of the same breed, but I think my wrist is broken and I was ahead of Ms. Kitty here," he said bitterly, dark eyes flashing with anger. "But if you wanna play favorites, go ahead. I know you X5 guys are always looking to make nice with women."

Ally whirled on him, her long black braid nearly smacking Seth in the face just as he was about to say he was married. "Oh, and what, you're just angry because you can't get a woman with your albino ass. And I bet your package is permanently downsized, right? The cold will do that to you."

"Bitch!" the transhuman snarled, raising a fist. Around them, the others were starting to get riled up again. Great.

Seth had had enough of this. He stepped up to the bickering pair and got in both of their faces. "I don't care if you look like a Grade A hooker or a hedgehog," he barked at them, "the next person who hits someone is getting sedated and sent to Sibil for a rectal exam!"

The two of them looked at each other and then looked at Seth before breaking apart and letting someone else step forward to take their place. Seth forced a smile that was probably more terrifying than if he had just kept a neutral face. "Take a seat. Please."

When Robin came back to help Sidda and Alec, they were busy righting one of the tables that had been displaying some of the brand-name products they'd managed to pick up in the last few weeks. Those products, which had been in boxes, were now torn apart and crushed on the floor.

Robin grabbed a box of trash bags, pulled one off the roll, and started picking up the products that were no longer any good. It was sad how much they'd wasted in their carelessness.

"I'm surprised Seth doesn't have you glued to his side," Sidda teased her friend, "after seeing that black eye."

"Hey, look who's talking," Robin retorted. Sidda grimaced. It was true; Alec was rather sneakily keeping her near him by working with her to clean up. Of course, he couldn't really be faulted for that since it would just be silly to go send him off to clean up elsewhere in the room when this was the area with the worst mess.

As they were setting some shelves to rights and putting cans back on them, a conversation near Sidda and Alec started to rise in both heat and volume.

"Hey listen here, lizard-man, if your kind didn't get so riled up every time someone said "boo!' we wouldn't have such a problem!"

"Kyle was just doing his job," the transhuman hissed, her eyes going slightly red-orange. "Your kind is always deliberately stirring up trouble!" The two had both dropped the stuff they had been picking up and were now slowly advancing on each other.

Alec and Sidda's eyes met. Not good. All they needed was for another fight to start…chaos would break out again.

"Hey, whoa, stop that!" Alec jumped between the two just as they looked like they were about to spring. Alec placed one hand firmly on the X-5 male's chest and his other hand on the female transhuman's shoulder. "Cool it. Seriously. You're acting like Familiars," he said, glaring each of them down in turn.

That froze them, because they knew exactly what he meant by that. By Alec continued anyway.

"Here we are, hoping to make Terminal City safer by taking advantage of a split in the Familiars. And look what's happening to us!"

"You're just protecting that little X5 because he's one of yours," the woman snarled. "Every now and then, someone needs a good lesson or two taught them…"

"Every now and then everyone needs a lesson, Kara," a large bear-like transhuman by the name of Samson said. He hadn't been in the Commissary when the fight broke out, but he'd been called in by some of the other transhumans to help cool things down. He was pretty well respected in the community and known for his peaceful way.

Kara's gaze flickered to the floor, and her posture relaxed somewhat. Only when that happened did the X5 on Alec's other side also let go some of his tension.

"But we shouldn't have to tell you that," Samson growled. The corners of his lips were lifted with disgust. "Alec's right. We know better than to turn against ourselves." Samson looked around the room; his voice carried a lot of power behind it, and most of the room had fallen silent to listen. "None of us have the excuse of not being intelligent. You just chose to ignore that intelligence." He jabbed a finger at his head. "Start thinking again."

Having said his peace of mind, Samson ambled off toward the side of the room, ignoring the scattered applause. The applause mostly came from the people who had been trying to break up the fights earlier though; everyone else was busy looking too sheepish.

Noticing that the two he'd pushed apart weren't showing signs of attacking one another again, Alec moved away from them and towards the center of the room.

"Look, guys, I know we didn't really like having to go to those government meetings every week, but obviously something about them worked. I think we need to meet to work out a government, now that our old one has fallen apart."

"Sounds good to me," Sidda said softly. She was practically bursting with pride for the way her mate was taking control of the situation. Seeing him take charge and do something about the situation sort of made her want to take him home and ravish him. Mmmmm. Ravishing him…that had to be her inner animal being attracted to his Alpha qualities. But the feeling was so strong…Sidda blinked. This was a serious situation, not time for her to contemplate stripping the clothes off Alec! Uh oh, she hoped it wasn't time for heat again.

"We should meet tonight," someone called out. "We can't wait around for Max anymore!" There were some angry murmurs of agreement, and it suddenly occurred to Sidda where half the anger here had come from. Just because the transgenics knew why Max had disappeared from the government didn't mean they could help feeling a little betrayed. By not overseeing the government, Max was breaking their trust in her.

"Let's do it then," Seth said, standing up from the line of medics. "Let's meet tonight at Headquarters. Everyone spread the word around that we're going to do something about the government tonight."

There was some nodding of heads, and Sidda was pretty sure that she saw signs of relaxation and less tension all over the room. The transgenics had just wanted something done. Which made sense. Manticore-trained soldiers didn't do well with sitting around idly. They also didn't do well with a lack of structure, order, and hierarchy. It couldn't be helped when they had all been raised that way.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: Dark Angel doesn't belong to me!

A/N: Thank you, everyone, for reviewing and looking at this story! Every review and view is much loved! :)

**Ex Multus Familia**

Chapter 9

"How come you got onto the council and I didn't?" Dalton asked, his eyes narrowed as he looked over at Anica, "I went on the first mission, I think that should've given me some extra recognition."

They were standing in a corner of the gym, hanging up a new punching bag to replace one of the old ones that had been handmade by Gatorade, the transgenic who ran the gym. Last night had been a long, long town hall style meeting where everyone yelled t each other, made long involved speeches and almost got into fights. Eventually there had been a decision to make a temporary council to handle the governing of the city for now and come up with a more permanent government system. There were five transhumans and five X-series on the council, and Anica happened to be one of the X-series, much to Dalton's consternation.

Anica swung her dark ponytail back over her shoulder, her expression serious. "Dalton, you stowed away in a truck and then threatened to follow Sidda and Alec all the way to Italy if they didn't take you. That's a little different from being assigned to a mission with a purpose."

Dalton pursed his lips and stopped tightening the screw that held the punching bag to the hook. "So, I wasn't useful on the mission?"

"Don't put words into my mouth," Anica said shortly, "I was only stating a fact that could have been a reason why I was voted onto the council and you weren't."

Dalton glanced down at her, frowning. "It was probably the male to female ratio. They needed to balance it."

Anica put her hands on her hips, and Dalton regretted those heated words, but he kept the annoyed expression on his face. He wasn't going to let her run all over him.

Anica tilted her head. Dangerous times were coming. "So that's all I'm good for? To balance out ratios?"

"Come on, don't be like that," Dalton said, starting to climb down from the ladder he had been standing on to put up the punching bag.

Anica took a step back from him when he reached the ground. "You're the one who's being really immature about this whole thing. It's not like I volunteered to be on the council, I was nominated and voted on. Did you want me to turn it down?"

Dalton rubbed his face, wondering where this conversation had started unraveling. "No, that's not—"

She cut him off with one sharp look. "Maybe you should think about what you want, and then we can talk." Turning, she was a one-woman storm as she walked out of the gym just as Sidda and Alec walked in, looking like they were there to work out. The pair exchanged glances, spotted Dalton just as he kicked at the ladder and sent it toppling, then looked at each other again.

"I think the love birds are having a spat," Sidda muttered to Alec. She set her bag down beside the makeshift boxing arena and started taking off her sweatshirt and sweatpants. It had been cold on the way in here since it was early January, but now she was too hot to bear wear anything more than her gym shorts and tank top. Aiden had been left with Robin at HQ while Mom and Dad decided to go let out some frustration that had been leftover from the day before and the long meeting the previous night.

Alec nodded and watched as Dalton stomped around for a few minutes then headed out toward the backdoor, ignoring everyone who was staring at him. "Five bucks it's about Anica getting voted in."

"Since he probably took it as an affront to his manliness, you're probably right," Sidda said, admiring his rather Grecian muscles as he took off his shirt. There really wasn't anything that could be taken as an affront to Alec's manliness. She leaned against the boxing arena, not even minding that the two transgenics who were sparring there at the moment could have run up against the ropes and into her.

Alec glanced over at her, noticing the look in her eyes. He let his own gaze traveled over her, appreciating the gentle curves, the pretty face and the shapely little body that belong to him and him alone. If he hadn't been so involved with appreciating his mate, he probably would have noticed that the pair of X-series transgenic guys that had been fighting before had stopped beating the tar out of each other and were now only throwing the occasional punch while they glanced at Sidda out of the corner of their eyes.

Finally, he looked up and realized they had stopped fighting. "You guys done?" he asked, turning his gaze back towards Sidda. She didn't wait for a confirmation as she climbed up and into the ring, slipping through the ropes like water through fingers, smooth and quick. Playfully, she grinned at the two X-series before looking back at Alec.

"You coming?" she asked in a way that sounded incredibly inappropriate for two simple words. The two X-series males looked as if they were about to acquiesce to her request when Alec bounded up and into the ring, giving both of them fierce glares. Muttering under their breath, the two of them got out of the ring, but they stood nearby, watching with more interest than they normally would.

As they stood in the middle of the ring, as if waiting for a bell that would never ring, Sidda stepped up to Alec and gave him that impossibly mischievous smile. "Don't go easy on me, Monty Cora," she teased, managing to make that stupid fight-name sound sexy, "I'll give as good as I get."

"Got it," he replied huskily, catching the thick, wonderful scent of her as she turned and started walking around him. She looked like she was sizing him up instead of preparing to fight him, but Alec knew better than to underestimate her. He knew what was going on, but the intelligent, rational side of his mind was going into dormant mode. He was aware of the other people in the room, mainly the males, but this game Sidda was playing was too interesting to take much notice of them. For now. If any of them made a move, though…

While she had Alec distracted, Sidda went in for a punch. Alec stepped aside, but instead of letting her move away he caught her arm as she started to retract it. He brought her close, just for a second, inhaling her scent.

Then Sidda laughed and spun around, catching him a good one in the side with her free arm. Alec caught that one as well, and now she was pinned to him, right up against him.

"Alec!" Her tone, her eyes, her face was full of laughter. "That's not how you're supposed to play."

"Hmm, is that so?" He leaned down for a kiss, and she let him have one for a split second before she tore one arm out of his grasp and had it around his neck. Without thinking, Alec instinctively bent and tossed her over, dislodging her arm in the process.

He scooted away and breathed deeply of the fresh air that was less filled with her scent. It was unfairly difficult to concentrate when Sidda was like this.

They danced around each other, feinting, throwing punches, darting back. Sidda was practically showing off her muscles and flexibility to the rest of the room, and occasionally it brought a growl out of Alec's throat when some of the males edged too close.

He ducked as Sidda tried to kick at him, then he tried to grab her leg. But it was already gone, of course.

"Whoa, whoa, hey, stop!" Suddenly Alec's view of Sidda was obstructed by a brunette female with chin-length brown hair waving around her face. Gatorade. Alec shook his head, wondering what she was doing in the arena. He was slightly surprised to realize that he could hear Sidda hissing from Gatorade's other side.

"Sidda, stop it." Gatorade leveled Sidda a stern glare, and Sidda blushed and looked away. "I think you two need to take this fight home," Gatorade continued, "Out of my gym and into your bed."

Sidda's mouth opened and closed in wordless protest, and it suddenly hit Alec like a brick. Sidda was in heat! "Hey, I thought you promised to warn me next time," Alec said with a laugh. He shook his head. "Thanks, Gatorade, will do."

'I'm sorry,' Sidda mouthed. She shrugged her shoulders and moved toward Alec. "Heat…makes you blind to itself." She paused and smirked at Alec before tracing one finger up his chest. "If it makes you feel better, I sort of assumed that being attracted to you wasn't out of the usual…"

Alec wrapped his hand around her finger and started to draw Sidda closer to him, but Gatorade's voice cut through again. "All right, listen, if you're not on your way to the apartment in five minutes I'm going to escort you two there myself. I do NOT want things getting messy here."

Not sure what she meant by that, Alec looked around to find several pairs of hungry male eyes trained on Sidda. He frowned and looked back at her only to find her smiling coyly at the lot of them.

"Okay, she's right," he said roughly. Alec grabbed Sidda and pulled her close to him even as he started heading to the side of the arena. If Sidda hadn't been so graceful she probably would've stumbled. "We're leaving now."

"Geez, we don't have to rush so much…" She caught a scent of a male nearby and she turned automatically; a moment later and Alec was growling and pulling her away again, muttering things about ripping people apart under his breath.

"Okay, maybe you're right," Sidda said. She grabbed her water bottle from her bag and splashed some cool water over her face. It immediately steamed a little. Wow, she was seriously in heat. Her senses cleared for a moment, she grabbed Alec's hand to pull him out of the gym even as he was still shrugging his jacket back on. She could keep him warm on the trip home, but Gatorade was right; they needed to get out before they caused any problems.

Sidda knew she wouldn't ever end up with anyone but her mate, and Alec knew that too, but she hated the way heat made her actually look at other men. She didn't want to; she didn't want to tease them to the extent she did, she didn't want to make them desire her, and she didn't want Alec to get jealous over her. Well, mostly. That was her sensible side. Her heat side wanted all that very much, which was the frustrating part.

"Well, at least we brought the street bike," Alec said, breathing deeply when they got outside.

"Hey, love, I'm sorry about that," Sidda said, pulling him close so she could kiss him. "You know I don't want anyone but…"

"I know, I know, I do," Alec murmured against her lips, trailing off into a groan as her kiss deepened. One of his arms wrapped around Sidda. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against her hair. "Sidda, we have got to get back to the apartment."

"Mmm, yes, we do," she said, snuggling closer into him. Alec bodily picked her up, displaying his manly strength to excellent advantage, Sidda thought. He set her on back of the bike and then climbed on in front. Sidda immediately wrapped her arms around him, needing to be as close as possible. Goodness, she couldn't wait to get home.

"We need to call Robin when we get back," Alec choked out.

"What for?" Sidda snapped, irritated at Alec mentioning another woman's name.

"Because…" Alec took a breath. "Umm…" he seemed to lose his thought as Sidda trailed small kisses down his neck. "Umm….Aiden…."

Sidda's eyes widened and she sat up. "Oh my gosh, you're right!" She moaned in annoyance. "Go, Alec! I need to feel the wind before I lose it again." Alec immediately pushed on the gas, and Sidda sighed in relief. Hopefully the wind would keep her sensible…long enough.

_Three days later…_

Seth left the X6 apartment building feeling like he had just gone through intense interrogation performed by angry teenagers, which was basically what had happened, except there hadn't been any physical torture. Unless you counted the assault of whiny voices on his ears. Almost every tenant of the building had turned out to complain about how the building was falling apart, how no one cared if they had a washing machine or not, how only about four stoves in the entire place worked, how the sinks had started spewing brown goo. Seth had let them complain and rant until they tired themselves out and then he had turned it all back on them.

Okay, yes, there were problems in the building, but why did the X6s think that it was up to the other transgenics to fix it? Out of all the groups who were old enough to take care of themselves, the X6s seemed to be the least self-sufficient. They hadn't gone on any missions yet when they got out of Manticore, so they had spent their entire lives having someone else taking care of them and they still expected someone else to provide for them. Max had coddled them by getting the other transgenics to help them out, but Max wasn't in charge anymore. That meant when the X6s had demanded yesterday that someone from the council come listen to them, the council had decided that the X6s, who weren't babies, needed to learn to take care of themselves. If that meant learning the ins and outs of plumbing, handling their own cooking and fixing up their building by themselves, so be it. Seth, who was one of the X-series on the council, had been elected to go deal with the X6s along with Anica.

At least Anica had been on his side. Whenever the rather put-out teenagers had tried to tell Seth that what he was asking was impossible, she had shot right back that they were just as capable as anyone else in the city and they were going to prove it. It was what they wanted, right? Seth had been grateful to have her with him on this one.

He walked back to HQ, thinking he would take a short break from his managerial duties. Maybe take Taylor over to Robin's studio for lunch or something. Lately Robin had been working hard on a plethora of room designs to show some Ordinaries who had become interested in transgenic artwork. It was a small but growing market, and when a few of them had figured out that there was a transgenic that decorated rooms, they had jumped on the idea. It was probably going to become a fad among the upper-class: have your house decorated by the artwork of illegal science projects, and if you can, have them decorate your penthouse apartment.

Whatever. As long as it made Robin happy, Seth didn't mind what she did with her spare time. It was better than her being called out to go on missions for the government. So far, there hadn't been many of those, but the threat was always looming nearby. Seth wasn't sure if he could just let her go if she was called, and knowing her successful record, she would be at some time. Maybe he could negotiate so he could go with her or, better yet, get her pulled off because of Taylor.

Seth pulled his toboggan down further over his ears. It was bitterly cold outside today, and there were flurries of snow cutting across the street. Maybe if it snowed enough, he could convince Robin to leave her studio for a little while to play in the snow with him and Taylor. He sorta secretly adored how his daughter was frantically in love with snow. She screamed and giggled every time it snowed, and she liked to sit on their bed and watch it from the window. When she could, she would bang on the window with her fists and yell her heard off, incoherently declaring that there was 'O' everywhere. Seth made a point to play with her in the snow whenever he could, just because it made her so wildly happy.

The daycare had moved again, thanks to the new renovations that were being done to the old daycare. This time it was in a building that the transgenics had been using a barracks when they first started coming into Terminal City. It was a simple but functional building that worked just fine while they worked on the old daycare, making it much more kid-friendly than it had been.

Like usual, no one was roaming around this area of TC since it was midday and most of the transgenics were either busy or sleeping. Seth headed up the steps of the makeshift daycare, and the feeling that something was wrong shot itself into his head. Something was missing and a familiar smell had taken its place. He touched the doorknob of the building jerked his head up as he realized what it was. There wasn't any noise. The kids were always noisy; Mole often complained that they were all born noisemakers and would never shut up. Usually you could hear the sounds of kids and babies screaming, crying, talking, gabbering or playing with toys before you even opened the door to the daycare. Now when Seth shoved the door open and hurried inside, there was an unnatural silence.

The smell was blood, he knew that smell almost better than his own. Beside the door there was a body, one of the daycare workers, a young transhuman with a small, dark red hole in the middle of his forehead. Farther down the hallway, there was a female body splayed out; he could tell her neck was broken from this far away. It was Hannah, a sweet-natured X5 who had a son around the same age as Taylor. Taylor…

His heart leapt up to his throat and pounded as he ran through the empty building, searching for his daughter, his baby girl. There wasn't a child in sight, no babies, no X9s or X8s, no one younger than an X7, and there were only bodies of older transgenics.

"Taylor!" Seth shouted, as if she would answer him. Cold washed over him. "Taylor!"

There was no one. Anywhere. Seth started blurring through the building, and it only took him five minutes to thoroughly establish that all the children were missing. He grabbed the list from the pick-up counter and glanced down at the names of the kids who'd been dropped off that day. Thirty-seven, total. Seth sighed. Not all the kids in Terminal City, but a good number. And his daughter was among then.

Seth picked up his cell phone. He would have to call the council members, and he would probably have to call Max since she was an honorary council member. Caretakers and parents would have to be called. But his priority was his family, so he called Robin first.

"Hey, Seth, what's up?" she said as soon as she answered the phone. She sounded cheerful and happy. Seth started walking towards headquarters; there was no time to waste.

"Robin…I've got something to tell you, but please, make sure you're sitting down first."

"Um, okay…" He heard some rustling around, and then the noise stopped. "There, I'm sitting." She sounded worried now. "What's wrong, Seth?"

"I went to the daycare to pick Taylor up for lunch, and she wasn't there."

"What? Where did she go?" Robin was only semi-worried now, he could tell, but that's because she didn't know the rest of it. "Did Sidda pick her up or something?"

"Robin, none of the children are here." Seth covered his mouth for a moment, feeling his throat choke up. He took a deep breath so he could go on and tell Robin the rest. "And Robin…all the daycare workers are dead."

There was a moment of dead silence, and then that moment stretched on. "Robin?" Seth askec worriedly, afraid that she had fainted.

"Taylor…" the word was barely understandable; it sounded half-strangled, and it ended with chocked sobs. Seth wanted to run to Robin, hold her, comfort her. But he had to make some other calls first. He could hear quiet, thin sobs on the other end of the phone now.

"Look, Robin, I gotta call the council and give them the list of kids to them so the parents can be notified, but then I'm going to come there, okay? I'll come get you. I'll be there soon—"

"No, I'll come to headquarters," Robin whispered. "That way, if you find anything out, I'll be there…" Robin's voice sounded shaky. "I'll call you when I get there, okay? You just work on trying to find out what happened to them. The sooner we know, the more chance we have of finding them."

Robin was right. "Okay, we'll do that," Seth said, battling the emotional side of him that wanted to either go be with his wife or just tear off looking for the kids. "We'll find Taylor, love." They said their goodbyes and Seth dialed the next number. Alec. He was on the council, but that wasn't the only reason to call him. Seth hadn't seen Aiden's name on the list; he needed to know if only the kids from the daycare had been taken.

Just as Alec picked up though, Seth reached headquarters. "Hey, Alec, where are you?" Seth asked as he hurried to the room where he knew at least two of the council members-Samson and an X-4 named Angela, were working.

"Um, on a supply run, why? We're headed back to T.C."

"Hold on a second," Seth replied. He lowered the phone and tossed the paper in front of Angela and Sampson. Anica was actually there too. "T.C emergency," Seth said quietly. "The kids from the daycare are missing, the daycare workers are dead. This is the list of parents. Get Krit on the phone and see what his security system shows."

Seth turned away, ignoring the excited and frightened questions from behind him. He didn't really know much more than he'd already told them; he'd answer their questions as soon as he was done talking to Alec.

"Did I just hear what I think I did?" Alec demanded, sounding angry.

"Yes, you did," Seth said, "I need to know if Aiden is okay…we have to know if it was only the kids from the daycare that we're taken."

"Aiden was home with Sidda…" Alec sounded tense, and Seth felt a moment of sympathy for him. At least Seth knew that Robin was okay. But if whoever it had been was going after all the kids…

"Call her and find out what's up," Seth said, "then call me back, okay?"

"Will do," Alec replied, and then hung up.

Seth turned around to find three pairs of eyes staring at him in total shock. They hadn't moved a muscle.

"My daughter was in daycare," Angela whispered, looking like she was about to cry. "Please tell me…it can't be…they're all gone?"

Seth quickly relayed all the details of what he'd seen when he went inside. "There were a few signs of struggle closer to the nursery itself where they were probably less surprised. But whatever was in there, it wasn't that hard for them to kill us."

"Familiars," Samson said, his eyes hard and angry.

"Let's find out for sure." Anica was dialing a number into her phone. "You said to call Krit, right? So he has that security system up?"

Sighing, Seth sat down and shook his head. "Not fully. The whole system was going to be defensive as well as observational. It was going to keep intruders out with motion detectors, lasers, special electric shocks, high-pitched sounds, the works. But at the moment all he has set up are cameras on the outsides of the buildings, insides of the public buildings, and along the fence perimeter."

"Well, that's a start," Anica said firmly. "We'll at least know who are intruders are, and possibly how they got past us."

"I'll start calling the other council members," Samson said, going for the larger phone that had been made especially for his rather large hands.

Angela started to reach for her phone, but it started vibrating before she could pick it up. She snatched it and pressed it to her ear. Being transgenics, all of them could hear what was said. One of the mobile patrols had just found the bodies of the gate guards at the East gate, along with the members of one of the other patrols. Well, that explained how whoever it was had gotten in.

Headquarters filled quickly with frantic parents who wanted to know what had happened to their children and mates of the daycare workers who had been killed. The only thing that had ever caused this much panic and sorrow in Terminal City had been when the Cultural Center had been bombed, but even that seemed less disastrous than this. How could anyone steal children? Who would do something like that?

Half of the council was currently holed up in one of the conference rooms while the other half did their best to comfort and explain whatever they knew to the growing crowd of upset and furious transgenics. Krit had set up the vid from the cameras in the conference room so they could examine them for whoever was going to die when the transgenics caught up with them. Seth was standing near the TV with his arms around Robin, his chin resting on the top of her head as he glared at the TV.

Robin's eyes were puffy and red from crying, and Seth was going to murder whoever had taken their child. God, he just wanted Taylor back right now. If anything happened to his girl… He had never really appreciated the training Manticore had given him until now; he was going to put every moment of those lessons and experiences to good use. He rubbed Robin's arms and kissed the top of her head, trying to give her some of the anger that he was running off of. She leaned her head back against his chest and gave a shuddering sigh.

In the back of the room, Alec was sitting in a chair with Sidda firmly in his lap and Aiden in her arms. He had almost panicked when he walked into their apartment and called for her and she didn't answer. When he blurred back to their bedroom, Sidda was sitting up and rubbing her eyes, giving him a sleepy glare while Aiden, who had been sleeping beside her on the pillow, started whimpering a protest at the noise. If Sidda hadn't been determined to get some sleep and spend time with Aiden after her three day stint of heat, Aiden probably would have been at the daycare center, and who knows, Sidda could have been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time like the nursery workers and the parents who had been at the daycare. Alec tightened his hold around Sidda and brushed his fingers across Aiden's cheek. He'd been damn lucky today, and he knew it.

The other three council members in the room were Angela, the X4, a female transhuman named Kylie who had been taking care of a couple of X9s that had been taken with the other children, and a male transhuman named Baxter who had a one-year-old daughter who was missing. Their eyes were all trained on the TV, waiting for Krit to get the system working.

In a corner, Max was sitting with her legs pulled up into the chair and her forehead resting on her knees. Beside her, Logan had his gloved hand on her shoulder. She had finally come out of seclusion, and she was as pissed as anyone, but there was a hint of despair to her anger that no one really liked or appreciated.

"Got it," Krit said grimly before pressing the play button on the set-up he had put together in a hurry. He moved back to stand beside Syl; the petite blonde moved closer to him and put her head against his shoulder as they watched the screen.

On the screen, a couple of vans that looked like any other beat-up supply vehicle in TC pulled up to the daycare and people dressed in thick winter clothing got out. There was no sound because Krit hadn't installed the microphones yet, but it didn't look like the people were talking much anyways. They grabbed some boxes out of the back of the vans and headed inside, but two of the people in the front were fingering weapons by the way they had their hands in their jackets. The way they moved was distinctive, smooth and somehow like a confident slither even though they were walking, but if you happened to see them on the street, you probably wouldn't be able to tell these people apart from other people in TC; bundled up in winter clothes and carrying boxes, they could have just been delivering supplies to the daycare. As the one of the daycare workers let them in, one guy stayed outside and started smoking a cigarette: the lookout.

Seth felt Robin grip his arms when the Familiars started to come back out of the buildings, still carrying the boxes. Seth scowled, knowing that the boxes had probably been empty when they had gone in and now they were full; if they had hurt Taylor in any way, he was going to slaughter them, there was no question. While the Familiars repeated this process a few more times, and during it, an X-series woman approached them, smiling until she got close. She started to back up and walk away, but a Familiar rushed her and grabbed her before she could take off. Seth growled as the Familiar snapped the woman's neck and dragged her limp body into the makeshift daycare center. How the hell hadn't anyone noticed this? Everyone who had been a witness was dead; they had been lucky that the Familiars hadn't thought they were high-tech enough to have a well-hidden surveillance system.

As the Familiars finished packing up their trucks and drove off, Seth felt Robin shudder and a couple tears dropped onto his arm. He held her closer. "I swear we're going to get her back, Robin."

"But what if—" she trailed off, sounding incredibly lost and young. Sometimes he forgot, but Robin was young. Both of them were only in their early twenties, and they had seen and dealt with more than anyone should in that short amount of time. He put his head against the crook of her neck and wished they could lead a less adventurous life. He just wanted his wife and his child and a peaceful home where the biggest troubles were how they were going to pay the bills and what they should name their next kid. But now he had to rescue their child from people who wanted…she couldn't be dead. Seth refused to believe that, and he wasn't going to let Robin think about it either.

"She's still alive," he said fiercely, loud enough for the others to hear. He lifted his head and glared at the rest of them, daring them to fight with him. "If they were going to kill them, they would have left the bodies." Robin made a small noise of distress before she stifled it, her eyes closed tight. He hugged her close. "Trust me, they're alive."

"But why?" Max said, her voice bitter and despairing, "Why would they take them like that instead of just killing them?"

"Leverage," Alec replied, "They want something from us."

"They want us dead," snapped Angela, "And killing the kids would effectively cut off the next generation."

"But what if it's something else?" Logan suggested quietly, "I think there's something we're not seeing."

"I think it's what Alec said," Seth said. "They either want something from us…or from our kids." There was quiet in the room for a moment, with no one talking and no one meeting each other's eyes. And then the silence was interrupted by a knock at the door.

Baxter went to get the door. Yes?" he asked quietly. Normally cheerful, the transhuman had descended into a rather cold silence since he'd found out about his daughter. He'd become mission-oriented and hadn't spoken any unnecessary words, leaving hysterical chit-chat and speculation to the parents outside the room.

It was Jane, a transgenic who worked in the science department of TC. "Hey…" She glanced around the room uneasily. "I know you guys are dealing with the children problem right now, but I just…" she hesitated, obviously unsure if her problem was worth interrupting them.

Seth gave Jane as encouraging a smile as he could muster; this wasn't the time to get angry or upset with other transgenics. They needed to stick together now more than ever. "What's wrong?

"It's just…" Jane's voice quieted even more. "We can't find Marie."

Max's head popped up, and Alec stiffened and turned to look at Seth. Everyone else stilled.

"Isn't that Sandeman's wife?" Samson asked, eyes dark.

"And his science partner," Max said, biting down on a fingernail.

"And White's mother," Alec reminded Max. He hadn't forgotten learning about that whole sorry history; it had created some interesting times back when they were first putting TC together. And apparently that particular family was still coming back to haunt them.

"You don't think he came for her, do you?" Angela asked. "She's been here with us for forever, wouldn't he have come before now?" She tapped a pencil impatiently against a pad of paper; she didn't seem to like not having the answers.

"What we know is that a group of Familiars came in here, and since we didn't have any prior warning, they probably weren't government since we have agents there," Seth said.

"And we know that we have White's mother here, and she disappeared on the same day as the kids," Alec added.

"There's something else," quiet Jane spoke up. Everyone turned to look rather again; they had completely forgotten she was still in the room. Jane looked like she was in actual physical pain. "Some of the documents Marie was working with went missing with her. I don't know about all the ones she took, but I do know that she was working on translating the tattoos we found on the children, and she had a list of all the children with the tattoos. And those papers weren't there."

Robin turned to look at Seth, her eyes wide. "Those tattoos were important," she said quietly. "Marie must have figured something out." Seth's stomach tightened in a knot. He had been part of the mission to bring back Marie. It was his fault that his little daughter had been stolen from them, along with many of the other children of Terminal City.

Sidda shifted uneasily and clutched Aiden a little tighter. She was feeling immensely guilty about still having her child, even though she was glad that he was safe. Alec, sending her tenseness, rubbed his hands up and down her arms a couple time and then ruffled Aiden's fuzzy hair. He'd told her that he was going to refuse to feel guilty because they'd had their share of troubles in the past, and this certainly hadn't been their fault. But she also knew that like her, it was tough seeing their friends deal with this. And Sidda had helped raise Taylor, especially when Taylor was younger. She felt like a small piece of her was gone with the baby, so she could only imagine what Robin felt like. She didn't like to think about how she would feel if it had been Aiden.

"Did they manage to get all the tattooed children?" Samson asked.

Sidda could feel Alec's hair against her cheek as he shook his head. "When I came in a little while ago I saw Tate and his kid, Robby. Robby's tattoos just showed up a week ago; I noticed them on the kid's arms."

"So Marie may not have known about him yet," Jane said.

"Or they really just did take the kids in the daycare, and Robby wasn't there yet," Logan put in, speaking up for the first time in a while. He wasn't on the council, so he didn't want them so say much. But he didn't want this to turn into a Marie-conspiracy just because it was the easiest explanation. And he knew the transgenics would try to look at everything logically, like they normally did, but he also knew that emotions could cloud judgment. And the transgenics definitely invested a lot of emotion in their children. He knew he and Max would, if they had managed to have a kid before…well, before the Cure stopped working.

"What are they going to do with the ones who don't have tattoos?" Kylie asked, clutching at her hands nervously. None of the children she'd been looking after had had any.

"Well, maybe they don't know where the tattoos will show up," Jane put in helpfully. "After all, we weren't totally sure. The tattoos have generally shown up around six months, but they can take a longer or shorter amount of time. And not all the different types of transgenics have had children yet so that we can see if there's a pattern."

"But mine were made by Manticore—" Kylie started.

Seth interrupted before she could dissolve into the hysterics that was going on outside the room. "Whatever they're looking for, they didn't kill or leave behind the children without tattoos. So we can probably safely assume that for some reason, the Familiars want all of our children alive. They just only took the most conveniently large group."

"And Marie," Angela put in. Again, silence. So many speculations, but no answers yet.

"Hey Krit," Alec asked, suddenly curious. "Just how far past the gate could you track the Familiars with what the camera saw? Do you think we could get a good idea of what direction they went in?"


End file.
